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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Life Thoughts 



FOR 



YOUNG MEN 



/ BY 

M. RHODES, D. D.. 

Pastor of St. Mark's English. Evangelical Lutheran 
Church, St. Louis, Mo. 






PHILADELPHIA : 
Lutheran Publication Society 

c88o. 

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COPYRIGHT 

LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY 

1879. 



INQUIRER P. & P. CO., 

STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS, 

LANCASTER, PA. 



PREFACE. 

THIS book has its origin in a series of Sunday 
evening lectures, delivered to the young men of 
the author's pastoral charge. Their presentation in 
the present form is owing to the repeated solicitation 
of ministers and others who heard them, and a desire 
that they may secure a wider field of influence than 
was at first contemplated. I entertained no thought 
of publishing them until one-half of them had been 
delivered, and even now, if my own fame were the 
highest consideration, I should not suffer them to 
see the light. They are not without many defects, 
and no one can be so conscious of these as the author 
himself; but no time has been allowed me for that 
finish and clearness of statement which would com- 
mend them to the cultivated. More than the half of 
them appear precisely as they were first written and 
delivered. Though commenced in, and continued 
through midsummer, they had a large hearing, and 
were not without gratifying results at the time. I 
have thought that in this time, when so many influ- 
ences are at work which are designed to vitiate the 
lives of young men especially, a book with an 

aim so specific might be regarded as timely. If it 

(Hi) 



IV PREFACE. 

shall prove that in this book I have brought to " Our 
Young Men" a warm heart and a helping hand, I 
shall feel abundantly compensated for any ill-fortune 
that may happen to it on its way across the critic's 
table. The fact is, the book is what it was designed 
to be — a simple, frank, and friendly statement of truth 
to young men. It lays no claim to striking original- 
ity, and is not entitled to any special literary merit. 
It is possible that some repetition will be noticed in 
these lectures. In some instances it is intentional, 
and designed to give greater emphasis to vital truth ; 
in others, it is an inadvertence which I can only now 
regret. A humble tribute, I lay it at the feet of the 
Master, assured that if He own it, it will not fail to 
prove a benediction to those for whom it is intended. 

M. R. 
St. Louis, Mo., December ji, i8jg. 



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CHAPTER J, 

PAGE. 

Our Young Men 7 

CHAPTER IE 
Evils to be Shunned 33 

CHAPTER III. 
Evil and its Resistance ♦ 62 

CHAPTER IV. - 
The Peril of Making Haste to be Rich 92 

CHAPTER V. 
Causes of Failure in Life 121 

'chapter VI. 

Elements of Success in Life 151 

CHAPTER VII. 
Character 178 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Duty 206 

< ; \ 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Model Young Man 231 

CHAPTER X. 
The Young Man and the Bible 257 

CHAPTER XI. 
Infidelity or Christianity — Which ? ... 286 

CHAPTER XII. 
Memories of Home 315 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 



A 



CHAPTER I. 

OUR YOUNG MEN. 

FEW months ago an intelligent young man, 
lonely and dejected, came to my door, and 
handing a letter to the servant, asked that it be given 
to me. 

An extract or two will explain its mission. 

" Rev. and Dear Sir : You may remember me 

as the reporter of the' , who met you several 

times last summer and reported four or five of your 
sermons for the paper. * * * For over a month 
I have been confined to my room with a severe attack 
of chills and fever from which I have but lately re- 
covered. To the extent of my ability I have used 
every effort to obtain employment, but without any 
hope of success, save an indefinite and somewhat 
vague promise that if I can bridge over the interval, 

an opening will be made for me on the , about 

the middle of March. * * * I have always 
earned fair salaries, but having an invalid brother and 
a widowed mother who are partially dependent on 

me, I have never saved much of my earnings. I 

(7) 



8 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

am, consequently, now in a position I never occupied 
before, without means to secure even the necessaries 
of life. Everything - of intrinsic value which I pos- 
sessed, my , etc., has gone to the pawnbroker 

to secure needed food and a place of shelter at night. 
**.•** While I do not profess to be a Chris- 
tian in the orthodox sense of the word, I am one in 
its broader significance. Reared as I was by godly 
parents, I have ever had the greatest reverence for 
sacred things, and ever participated in the privileges 
of the sanctuary where I could do so. My present 
unfortunate condition is alone to be attributed to ill- 
ness and improvidence. * * * * In the conver- 
sation which I had with you last summer and the 
sermons which I reported, you attracted me as one 
in whom I could repose my confidence, and so I have 
frankly done. * * * Can you not among your 
circle of friends find one, who can give me some 
temporary, if not permanent employment, by which 
I can earn my daily bread ? * * * Plainly stated, 
my condition is this, 1 am penniless and homeless ; I 
have not tasted food to-day and do not know where 
I shall find shelter for the night. * * * With 
your permission I will call on you this evening, when 
I trust you can give me some encouragement. 

" Respectfully, 



A subsequent interview with this young man con- 
firmed in my mind the sincerity evinced in his letter. 



•LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 9 

I was not without promptings to some suspicion in 
his case, but I remembered how easy it is to act the 
part of the Levite in the parable and to relieve our 
responsibility in a cautiousness that is only unmanly 
selfishness in cruel disguise. The young man secured 
employment, not by any effort of mine, but of his 
own, and in it, met with an accident that disabled 
him for a considerable time. When he had suf- 
ficiently recovered, he addressed me a letter from the 
hospital. The following is an extract : 

" During these long weeks I have been confined to 
my bed, I have had time and opportunity to review 
my past life, and it has been by no means satisfactory. 
The memories of my dear old mother's prayers and 
counsels have haunted me constantly, and I have 
tried to confess the many sins of my life to God, and 
plead his forgiveness, and determine that I will here- 
after try to live a consistent Christian life. 

" When I called on you, you treated me so kindly 
that I want to write you of my determination and ask 
your assistance to carry it out. * * * I am in 

Division , Ward , where I should be gfad to 

receive a line of encouragement from you." % 

I was deeply impressed with these communications, 
and felt that there was a great wrong among us, in the 
little attention given to our young men, and resolved 
that I would correct my own fault here, by greater 
sympathy and effort in their behalf in the future. 

This young man is but one of many, especially in 



10 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

our large cities, who, sometimes from fault of their 
own, and sometimes from circumstances over which 
they have no control, are cast adrift, and not unfre- 
quently allowed to perish, when a hopeful rescue was 
entirely possible. 

Surely the ministers and people of God should not 
be less earnest in efforts to save them, than are evil 
men to destroy them. It does not meet the case, nor 
contribute any honor to Christian sympathy and in- 
strumentality, to say that the fault and the folly are 
their own ; that if they did right and were prudent 
they would be saved the miseries that often come 
upon them. Very true. But is it not true of all, 
and if such a method and spirit obtained, would any 
be saved ? would we have been saved ourselves ? If 
these imperiled or fallen ones are culpable, it is only 
the one brand that blackens every brow, and yet it 
did not rouse the anger, but stirred the sympathy and 
love of the Father above us, and moved him to a re- 
demption that compassionates the worst, and invites 
all to its salvation. 

The question is not so much, how these fallen, de- 
luded ones came into the plight some are too blind 
to see, but rather this — they are by unspeakable con- 
siderations worth saving. If we would combine the 
salvation of the soul with the relief of the body, we 
may not stop to ask whether these lost ones that 
come to us now and again are worthy of our sympa- 
thy and help. 

I am fearful that not a few young men are sacri- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I I 

ficed to the excessive cautiousness and guilty pro- 
priety of many who might do much for their recovery 
and ennoblement. 

And now, if I shall be able to stir up the good 
everywhere to more earnest endeavor in behalf of our 
young men, to encourage those who are devoted to 
their rescue and elevation, and especially to kindle in 
young men themselves high and noble aspirations, 
I shall be more than repaid for this effort in their 
behalf. And I claim a hearing at your hands, my 
young friends, for various reasons, not the least of 
which is the point in life to which I have come. I 
am not any longer a young man, neither am I old. 
My place is at that point " where the roads of youth 
and age seem to dip," as the poet has written, " be- 
neath the ford of the stream of middle life." 

I have the memories, and am not a stranger to the 
perils of youth, and trust that I may claim some just 
discernment of the possibilities of which this class is 
capable. And may not the claim to a hearing find 
emphasis at such a crisis in life? With the memories 
of its frailties and temptations yet fresh in mind, and 
with . that experience which to many of you is yet 
wanting, may we not speak with an earnestness and 
truthfulness that will challenge respect ? 

But after all, young men, it is not any position or 
personal claim that summons me to the task I have 
undertaken, so much as what you are, or may become 
yourselves. 

There are many classes of men, and these differ 



12 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

again as individuals in a manner that answers all the 
interminable phases of our wonderful life. Barring 
all but the highest standard and best habit of living, 
there is need for this diversity. The arrangement 
and the operation of it in human life are evidences of 
a Divine mind. There is sad perversion and prostitu- 
tion of gifts and opportunity, but it still remains 
true that God hath made everything beautiful in 
his time. 

But amid all the variety of men and mind, I can 
conceive of no class more important than our young 
men. For many considerations they are worthy of 
special regard. To talk about and to them with 
any reference to manhood and destiny, is to speak in 
a sense for all time. Are we not deliberating for the 
generations, and may we not in these words, have 
respect to the foundations of government, to the 
greater scope and purity of the church, to the peace 
and happiness of homes, and to the noblest civiliza- 
tion under the sun ? 

I am not 'over-enthusiastic, nor lost in figures of 
speech, when I affirm that in speaking on such a 
subject we may kindle a light that will be the glory 
of the ages as they come and go. It will not be 
wrought by any words we may utter simply, nor by 
any organized method we may set in motion, but 
rather by a right apprehension of the importance and 
the possibilities of the class in whose behalf we speak. 

Think of their number. What thousands of them 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 3 

tramp our streets. They are an exceeding great 
army, athlete, the possessors of the best gifts and 
forces of life. The middle-aged have attained their 
growth, have become settled in their habits, and have 
chosen their life-work. The old have spent their 
day, wrought out their destiny, and whatever it be, 
shall soon enter upon it. With the middle class the 
sun is at high meridian; they may look either way, 
but can only go on ; we think of them as established 
in character and aim, and must write their names 
where the shadows will soon fall. But on the other 
side, flushed with the glow and beautiful with the 
freshness of the morning, what stalwart ranks con- 
front us! 

How their faces glow as if they were transfig- 
ured ! what elasticity is in their step! what music in 
their voices! what expanse of chest ! what majestic 
port ! Plant a star on every one of their brows, for 
the lamp of hope swings over their path and makes it 
radiant as the sun in his course. They are our young 
men — in all that is good and great in every sphere of 
life, they have the right of way and such advantage 
of choice and opportunity as no golden age has ever 
offered, and no exalted mind will scorn. On the top 
of the hill I look back and shout "All hail! ye favored 
of God! not forgetting that opportunity and responsi- 
bility go together, you may make your pathway a 
street of gold, and achieve a destiny that would not 
demean an angel." Think of the possibilities of which 



14 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

these are capable ; rough, rude, unsightly many of 
them are, but the wild flower is not less fragrant be- 
cause it blooms on the rocks in the wilderness ; the 
gold is not less valuable because it lies embedded in 
the clay and rock ; the diamond is not less brilliant 
because it sleeps in the mire and angry waters dash 
over its bed. The sculptor cares not for the rough- 
ness of the block, so that it is clean, clear marble. 
So, whatever the surroundings, however much the 
fine gold has become dim, there is still glory in the 
wreck, and what, with the grace of the Gospel, and 
the renewing, brightening fire of the Spirit, these may 
yet come to be the adornment of the race, and saints 
in heaven that shall shine as the stars of the firma- 
ment. 

I declare them capable of infinite enlargement. 
And you are what you are, as young men. Your 
pre-eminence and hope consist largely in the fact of 
your youth. The ideal that invites you to its reward 
is not possible to any who fail to apprehend and aspire 
to it in youth. It contemplates all these precious 
years, all these rare opportunities, and all that vigor 
of gift which you enjoy now. What you squander 
now can never be recovered, and what you achieve 
now for God, and right, and manhood, and immortal- 
ity can never be excelled. 

Oh, you know not what hidden hopes, what reaches 
of power, what sublime forces lie concealed within 
you, only waiting your own development in a direc- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I 5 

tion worthy of them, and which alone can furnish the 
endowment to appropriate them. 

What a " chosen generation" you are, and what an 
opportunity and what motives you have to become 
" a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar peo- 
ple," the sons and witnesses of the Lord Almighty. 

I would I could lead you to put such estimate upon 
yourselves as would quicken everything noble in you, 
and rouse you to such endeavor, as would bring you 
into the liberty of a true manhood and "the power of 
an endless life." 

But take another view, and the importance of our 
young men as a class will not appear less obvious. 
In sensitive and moral beings a capacity of develop- 
ment in one direction involves its opposite, and that 
in an equal degree. He who is capable of moral ele- 
vation must be and is capable of moral degradation. 
A young man may be in his character and life a beau- 
tiful illustration of superior excellence ; but he may 
also be a shocking manifestation of vice and sin. The 
better, the higher, the purer, the nobler any being is 
capable of becoming, the more fearful will be the 
downfall and ruin. It requires an angel to make a 
devil. It is a dark glass through which to look, yet 
even in this, see the greatness, the manifoldness of 
man, especially of the class now referred to. Touch- 
ing the extremes of being, our young men are capa- 
able " of development on the level of any nature of 
which they are partakers, and at any point along a 



1 6 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

line that reaches from the instinct of the animal up to 
God himself." They may become beastly and devil- 
ish, or they may rise until in thought and conscious- 
ness and moral aspiration they commune with the 
Infinite. 

If they go down, the depth of the fall will be pro- 
portionate to the hight to which they might have 
risen. Let a young man become thoroughly vi- 
cious, eaten with vice, shackled all over until he is the 
whipped slave of himself, and who can estimate the 
calamity ? The shock of such a fall sends a shudder 
through the very holiness of God, for it is a blow at 
it. As he goes reeling in his madness to his own 
place, he cannot stir a single star in its orbit, the very 
flowers would grow unconscious on his path or grave, 
and yet, like an enraged child resisting parental love 
and rule, he can, he does reproach his Maker and sting 
his heart. In a community, in a family, in a city, he 
is like the dead fly in the ointment, defiling all he 
touches. 

Harm ! he is as a spark to the magazine, as the 
leak to the vessel, as the germ of fatal disease to the 
destroying plague. Such a one may attain a capacity 
of evil that is simply immense, and the reach and 
ruin of it may be traced largely to the fact that he is 
a young man. I would think, and I would have you 
think, of our young men as a class pre-eminent in 
importance, not simply because they are involved in 
the common ruin and may be saved, but because of 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. \J 

what is lost to all true, and noble, and lasting achieve- 
ment in their loss. It is their exceptional endowment 
in every way, and their prominence of position by 
reason of it, that augments their worth, and chal- 
lenges the earnest employment of every right means 
of rescue and elevation. We look upon them in an 
army and say they are the flower of the nation ; save 
them, ennoble them, gird them as God would gird 
them ; let life in them be more than a physical force, 
a profitless drudgery, or a mere opportunity for the 
gratification of lawless passion ; let truth shine in their 
buoyancy ; let purity put holy harmony into their 
joy ; give them an aim adequate to the sublime com- 
pass of life ; harness them up for God and right, and 
they will be "a spectacle to the angels," and the 
noblest manifestation of a royal humanity on earth. 

But, after all, this is only a possible picture; as we 
look about us it seems far more a hope than a real- 
ized fact ; but it is a hope, and I should be glad if 
young men themselves, and those interested in them, 
would get inspiration from it ; the one to strike off 
every fetter and assert their true freedom, and the 
other to persevere in every effort to hasten the grand 
result. 

But to appreciate the true destiny of our young 
men, we must not be blind to the extent and charac- 
ter of their ruin. It is not a pleasant contemplation, 
but in treating a malignant case we must not be con- 
tent with a superficial diagnosis; we must. go to the 



1 8 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

root of the disease and comprehend it most in its 
hidden and most perilous parts. 

Alas ! almost any community, anywhere, will fur- 
nish the illustration we need. I rejoice in the goodly 
number in whom the spell of delusion is broken, and 
whose fresh, joyous, and vigorous lives thrill with 
noble impulses. Than this bright company moving 
toward a destiny worthy of them in this world and in 
the next, our eyes look on no sight more beautiful. 
The good of earth are not privileged with a trans- 
figuration on this earth that glows with a brighter 
effulgence than is witnessed in the consecrated march 
of young men toward a character and destiny that 
God approves. But we shall gain nothing by being 
indifferent to fact, because the fact may be shocking. 
History has many a shadowy page, and its testimony 
in reference to godless young men, their influence 
and fate, may be turned to good account if the warn- 
ing may lead the steps of others in a better direction. 
The fall of Babylon still sends its sepulchral reverber- 
ations down through the generations, and the mysteri- 
ous hand, in a thousand sins and calamities of youth 
familiar to our times, is still writing its silent but awful 
warning on the wall. And whence the cause of that 
fearful overthrow in the by-gone time ? The race of 
the Chaldeans, says Dr. March, were " tender and 
delicate, given to pleasure, dwelling carelessly, and 
trusting in wickedness. Their young men were 
' showy, sensual, and self-indulgent. They frequented 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN 1 . 1 9 

dramatic entertainments in which female singers and 
dancers appeared on the stage with little dress and 
less decency, for the amusement of the audience. 
They drank wine and sang lewd songs, and were out 
late at night; and they did everything else that wild, 
half-intoxicated young men are most likely to do. * * 
* * The day of doom is not far from any great city 
when its young men have become tender and delicate 
and given to pleasure ; when they have grown effemi- 
nate, self-indulgent, fond of amusement, and afraid of 
work; when they are excited and passionate about 
trinkets and trifles — nerveless and spiritless about the 
nobler demands of effort and duty. There is no more 
effectual way to destroy a great and mighty nation 
than to give its young men all the money they want, 
provide them with plays, and festivities, and amuse- 
ments, and dances, and wine, and then leave them to 
sweat the life and manhood out of body and soul in 
the hot-bed of pleasure and self-indulgence. That is 
the way Babylon was ruined. That is the way 
imperial Rome became an easy prey to Northern 
barbarians. That is the way Christian Constantinople 
came under the debasing and abominable sway of 
Mohammedans. That is the way Venice ended a 
thousand years of independent and glorious history 
with shame and servitude. 

" And nothing worse could come upon any city 
than to have a generation of tender and delicate young 
men, without principle, without conscience, but with 



20 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

money enough to support elegant pleasures and 
costly vices. Let such young men give tone to pub- 
lic opinion, and take the lead in the highest circles of 
society in any city in our land, and they would soon 
make it the Sodom of America." 

Admit this to be an extreme picture, yet does not 
nearly every city in the land present all the ap- 
proaches to a like destiny? Do not the same insidi- 
ous and corrupting vices that helped to shake 
Babylon from her foundations, and that have scattered 
the ruin of her desolations all over the world, still 
curse and waste the masses of our young men in all 
our cities ? What a reeling army they are, and where 
are they not found. Their trail is over the tapestry 
and Axminster of elegant homes, and across the bare 
floors of wretched dwellings ; they stalk, and hoot, 
and shout the battle-cry of the Commune on our 
streets ; they bow at the gilded shrine of the palace 
of infamy, and sit at the greasy tables of lowest dens 
of vice ; in godless glee they weave profanity into 
their midnight songs, and dance to the clanking of 
chains they cannot see. With God's image under 
their feet they give up their faculties and forces to 
unmanly and wicked enjoyments ; they glory in the 
scorn and derision of all that is sacred and pure, and 
so glory in their shame. Endowed with the solemn 
responsibility of the ballot they claim the right, and 
prostitute the noble privilege of citizenship ; and 
utterly lost to all sense of right and manhood, they 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 21 

fling themselves upon the dripping Moloch of horrid 
crime, and leave behind them a memory that is a 
blot and a scourge upon society. 

I see a deep, dark margin about society in our great 
cities, but of all the saddest sight is the teeming 
hosts of our young men, without an exalted aim, and 
wasting in every faculty and force which they possess. 
Hear their tread ! See them swaying in the blast 
like withered stalks in the tempest ! On they rush, re- 
cruiting as they march, their brain cloudy with delu- 
sion, their hearts hot with consuming " fires, their 
blood dull and thick with impurities that will run in 
the veins of the generations, their feet swift to shed 
blood, the snare of death in their example, and their 
presence in the home, in the community, anywhere, a 
moral leprosy the infection of which is sure and often 
fatal. 

What does it mean as we look into the future ? It 
means the hope of the nation thrust under the smit- 
ing of angry lightnings ; it means the security of the 
Church imperiled ; it means the order and well-being 
of society deranged and defeated ; it means the 
sanctity and loveliness of homes violated; it means a 
ruin so wide and deep as to rouse a real anxiety in 
all who love and seek to benefit mankind. 

There is no estimating the calamity of such a 
catastrophe to our young men, or to the country or 
community in which they live. 

I have spoken strongly and with fervor, and whilst 



22 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

there are many not nearly so bad as the examples I 
have named, yet I question if the half has been told ; 
and then the road to ruin is one, and its by-paths 
skirt often with flowers, and trodden by the less dis- 
solute, all lead into the broad and thronged thorough- 
fare whose end is hopeless despair. I have not 
meant to speak with harshness or undue censure, for 
I am not unmindful of the disadvantages many of 
our lost young men have labored under. Surrender- 
ing themselves to the disposition in them, aggravated 
and answered by the circumstances without them, we 
would not expect them to be better than they are. 

I am sure the very worst of them challenges the 
sympathy of every compassionate heart, and no one 
feels for them more than that gracious Redeemer in 
whom harlots and publicans found a friend. Nor 
would I look upon one of them as hopeless. Some- 
where among the lowest of them, God has jewels that 
are yet to shine as the brightness of the firmament, 
and to stand as kings and priests before him, and 
what a reward will his be, here and hereafter, who is 
wise to win them to paths of virtue and religion. 
See the issues that may come of such a rescue. Save 
a young man to himself, to God, and humanity, set 
his feet firmly on the Rock of Ages, turn his bright 
eye from low indulgence toward the pure bright 
stars, put a harmony into his soul out of which will 
come a tribute of music for God, make his life 
redolent as a garden of flowers with the fragrance of 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 23 

virtue and piety, and you have not only saved an im- 
mortal being, which is itself an unspeakable achieve- 
ment, but you have given a new revelation, another 
manifestation of God's grace to men, and interpreted 
to the world the great importance of the class from 
which you have gained a trophy. 

Consider the time you have redeemed, the forces 
you have quickened and put into right and accordant 
motion, and the vast and noble possibilities you have 
recovered to assurance of realization. What ripples 
of influence you have started on the great sea of life, 
and what a benediction is insured to the generations to 
come. You have not only wrought a spiritual salva- 
tion, but you have taken all the vast endowment of 
this nature, of body, mind and soul, all the advantage 
that comes of youth, and lifted them into a dignity 
and exercise worthy of them ; you have linked a life 
to immortality here and hereafter. We are to seek 
to benefit all, but for many considerations, we have 
wrought a pre-eminently blessed work, when under 
God we have saved one of our young men. 

Were it possible to see all the young men of the 
land, rescued, moving forward under right impulses, 
and toward right aims, the sons of God by grace as 
well as -by nature, happy in the right development 
and wise adjustment of all their powers, the whole 
being instinct with a new life, the world would be 
lifted so near to the throne of God, that it seems to 
me the heavens above us must rend asunder with the 



24 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

shout of jubilee. Oh ! shall we, whom God has 
given to see what these are, how dreadful their ruin, 
how great their gifts, how bright their possibilities if 
saved — shall we, with such a vision, and the instru- 
mentalities and opportunity of so great a redemption 
at our hands, be indifferent to effort, or hesitant to 
encourage it in others ? 

Rather shall we not renew our efforts, and labor to 
become more and more skilled in our approaches, 
that, by any means and every means, we may save at 
least some of our young men. No man can afford to 
look on the ruin of these with indifference. Has he 
sons ? He knows not what snares are set for their 
feet. Let him beware, lest as with Eli, if they break 
not his neck, they do what is worse, pierce his heart 
with many sorrows and hurry him to the grave. But 
in any event, no man can afford to be indifferent to 
the well-being of this class. Your homes, your busi- 
ness pursuits, your highest social and secular interests, 
are all more or less identified with and dependent 
upon this class. He who by an unholy example, or 
a chilly indifference to the young men of the commu- 
nity, either misleads or repels them, is an enemy to 
the best civilization, and to the truest social order, and 
to God and his law. 

I bespeak for these young men, especially the great 
army of the lost, a hearty and practical sympathy. 
Every man that lays claim to manhood owes it to 
them, and every Christian man that denies them this, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 25 

misrepresents and dishonors his Saviour. Jesus took 
the demoniac son by the hand and lifted him up. 
First of all, these must feel the deep, broad humanity 
of Christianity before they will come to its divinity. 
Hundreds and thousands of these young men are 
down. Disheartened, they no longer apprehend any 
vestige worth saving in their ruin, and yet there lin- 
gers in them a sense of beauty, a sense of truth, a 
sense of freedom, and though so faint as to scarce be 
discernible, still any appeal to it may not be hope- 
less ; but we must carry the lamp of hope to them by 
the pierced hands of Christ ; we must reach down 
and lift them' up. They must feel the thrill of our 
sympathy before they will allow us to be the instru- 
ments of their salvation. Let us not forget that a 
lost man and a saved man look through very differ- 
ent eyes. The lost man sees nothing in his own ruin, 
while the saved man sees every hope enshrined in 
the possibility of his salvation. But how shall they 
be brought together so that the lost man will appre- 
ciate the effort of the one who would be his benefac- 
tor ? Largely by the power of a hearty sympathy. 
Argument will fail, vehement appeal will fail, but 
sympathy, quickened and guided by the Holy Spirit, 
will rarely fail. Indeed, except we come with a 
large heart and a kindly manner, we will repel these 
lost young men. 

They are sore beaten with their own lash, they 
are sensitive to the approach of those who claim by 



26 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

their very attitude to be better, nor are they without 
some suspicion of our sincerity, so long has the priest 
and the Levite passed them by. It is good, loving, 
friendly Samaritans these need, who lie bleeding, 
wasting, dying on the wayside. Long enough have 
they been rebuked — how easy it is to do that ; long 
enough have they been counted as outcasts and 
branded as criminals unworthy the respect of men. 
Oh, for the heart and tone of Jesus to say, " Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." " Father, forgive them ; they 
know not what they do." When has that spirit failed 
where salvation was possible ? or when has the oppo- 
site of it ever succeeded ? 

I fear among those who would be reformers, and 
who, I doubt not, have a commendable interest in the 
welfare of the fallen, there is much of that unfortunate 
spirit which Rowland Hill once rebuked in this quaint 
way : A benevolent society was to be formed, and 
the names of a number of persons were suggested 
who were thought to be suitable and worthy of its 
privileges. Among these were some of humble 
origin, and especially of humble calling. A Pharisa- 
ical brother rose and observed that some regard 
should be paid to the respectability of the organiza- 
tion, and that " tag, rag, and bob-tail should not 
compose the committee." Mr. Hill easily saw 
through the flimsy guise that in this instance ill-con- 
cealed the pride of the human heart, and, starting to 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2J 

his feet, at the instance of a noble impulse, he raised 
his hands as in the attitude of prayer, and said: " God 
bless tag — God bless rag — God bless bob-tail !" He 
sat down, and these humble men were added to the 
committee. 

Alas ! that there should be so much disposition yet 
to look with contempt upon " rag, tag, and bob-tail," 
and such an absence of that warm mother-sympathy 
that is pre-eminent in the Saviour made like unto us, 
and that gives to every right agency for the recovery 
and help of men, such a resistless force. I must 
bespeak for these, wretched, self-cursed, and guilty as 
many of them are, a larger Christian sympathy. By 
our own temper and words, let us roll back the dark- 
ness their own sin and delusion beholds about the 
cross, and give them to see him who compassionates 
the worst, and turns none away. Let us come into a 
larger salvation ourselves by going down to these 
lost ones; let us present in ourselves the heart, and 
spirit, and self-denial, and subduing pity of Jesus, and 
here and there a new hope will kindle among these 
dark souls, and saved first by such hope, they will 
come at last to the fuller redemption of faith and 
repentance. 

But who shall set about to save our young men ? 
Every man whose soul is capable of a noble impulse. 
It is better that men be virtuous than vicious. 
Morality can never achieve a full and final redemption, 
but it may answer some of the noble ends of life, and 



25 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

must have pre-eminence over vice. Far should it be 
from the Christian reformer to be satisfied with this, 
but he who helps a young man to good morals, has 
done something to bring him a step nearer the grace 
of God. And this is the duty of all right-minded men. 
No man has any more right to confront a young man 
with an evil example, than he has to administer a 
dose of poison to him. Neither has any man a right 
to condemn a young man for an evil course, until he 
has done what he could to save him from it. It is 
God's gracious law that the strong shall bear with 
the weak, not condemn them, much less dishearten 
them in the feeblest aspiration to better attainment. 
It is a great excellence to be able to abhor the evil 
without abhorring the evil-doer, and that faculty he 
must cultivate who would save men. The faithful 
wife does not admire the drunkenness of her husband, 
but she loves him, and while she loves him she makes 
a mighty appeal to him to cast away his chains. So 
we must approach our vicious and unsaved young 
men. But there is a fitness of things, and I would 
seek to encourage young men themselves in efforts to 
save their own class. There is a charm, a beauti- 
ful appropriateness and a peculiar advantage in young 
men laboring to lift up their own class. The brother 
is nearest the brother, the sister is nearest the sister, 
and these are nearest to each other. 

The aged are often wise, but a bit intolerant ; they 
do not always understand this joyous, buoyant, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 20, 

sprightly life ; they have forgotten its trials, possibly 
have never known its perils, and often fail to see that 
what gives youth its charm, and makes it like the 
morning of the day, is not to be destroyed in their 
saving, but renewed and set like a diadem on a life of 
right-doing and aims. The middle-aged are likely to 
be harsh, to attempt to strap the ungovernable into 
their own good ways and wishes ; their patience is 
often short at both ends and sensitive in the middle ; 
their life struggle and their past experience have 
made them very matter-of-fact men, and they cannot 
stop long to debate with the unwary and those who 
are out of the way. 

It is everybody's work, but especially is it your 
work, young men, to go after these of whom we 
speak. Many of you have been in the same condem- 
nation with them ; you know their temptations, their 
perils ; you have felt, as they often do, the indifference, 
the lack of sympathy, and sometimes the scorn with 
which they are too often repelled by those who boast 
better condition and destiny. There are points where 
your natures chime in harmony, and if brought 
together in right ministry, you may produce blessed 
music in which they will join you. Whether through 
the Young Men's Christian Association, the methods 
of your own church, or of your own accord, you can 
approach these with a familiarity, and if Christ be in 
you, with an advantage and power no other can. 
You will not always have the sympathy and encour- 



30 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

agement you would like, even in a work so Christ- 
like; you will sometimes fall before cold, searching, 
critical eyes, especially if you look only on the 
material side of things ; but remember, that the ser- 
vant may not be greater than the Master, and that all 
this world is God's temple, and if you are seeking 
to lift up any poor wretch who may be in it, God is 
watching you, angels are watching you. Oh ! how 
many and how bright are the witnesses ! Turn your 
eyes toward these that from the opened heavens 
applaud you, and then defy, not with unkindliness 
and malice, but with the sufficiency of God, the harsh 
criticisms of men who would let any poor prodigal 
perish rather than violate the slightest rule of pro- 
priety, or break the temper of bigotry, or offend the 
shallowest traditions of the fathers. Young men 
who have come into the light, on whom God has 
written his name, and who go out to do battle as 
soldiers of the cross and for its glory, I urge you, 
give special attention to the lost of your own class, 
and may God speed you in your effort to save them. 
I close with the conviction that the best hopes I 
have expressed in these utterances will never be 
realized by a multitude, possibly by some to whom 
these words may come. They have reached that 
point in life where the snows fall. It is too late for 
them to think of following that bright star, whose light 
should have been their guide long ago. They will 
soon fold their hands for the last sleep — how unspeak- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 3 1 

ably sad, if before that, every bright star in the sky of 
their worried, guilty life shall have been quenched. 

Had they hearkened long ago, how different it 
would be now. Young men, deep in guilt, and far 
from God, it is to you I come. I offer you a friendly 
hand to help you. Not yet, may we not hope, 
hardened in sin ; not yet proof to kindly appeal, I 
would approach you with confidence and with expec- 
tation. I see in you more to save, than in all the 
riches of the globe. For you, for what you are in 
your ruin, for what you may become, Jesus left all the 
glory of heaven, and came to earth and died. Will 
you respond to that marvelous mission in your per- 
sonal behalf? If you do, I have to tell you that a 
thousand hopes to be realized here and hereafter 
come to greet you. You may well lament the sad 
waste of your faculties and opportunities ; the loss is 
terrible enough, but you can do a better thing than 
sit and brood over the ghastly wreck, and that is, set 
about to gather up the fragments, and if God come to 
your renewal, and he will if you ask him, he will so 
re-create you, that even now, nothing shall be lost. 
Before you, if you will see it, a world opens to-day 
of such power and beauty as your fathers could not 
have seen if they had desired. If you go down, you 
will carry with you into the dust of infamy and hope- 
lessness more, far more, than it would have been 
possible to realize had you been born a generation 
sooner. Oh ! what hopes and what a life are before 



32 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

you : but what if you refuse to grasp them " while the 
inspiration of youth is pouring like a torrent through 
your heart." What ! will you sacrifice all your gifts, 
all your opportunities, all the advantage of your age 
and time, all the brilliant destiny that puts immortal 
beauty upon the distant horizon, to sinful indulgence 
and aims ? Will you take your soul, God's harp in 
you, and wring discordant music from it over the 
polluted shrines of passion and folly? If you will, 
how much better if you had never been born, or had 
gone to wakeless sleep in the cradle in which you 
were rocked. But you will not do this. Just now, 
may it not be hoped you will so come to yourself as 
to see a better vision above the clouds that envelope 
you, and to arise and haste away toward a destiny 
within your reach, and indescribable for its glory? 
Your gifts, your possibilities, your place in the march 
of men, demand it of you ; above all, God your 
Father and Christ your Saviour ask it of you. 

"Son, give me thy heart." Obey, and he will re- 
store your soul and lead you in the paths of right- 
eousness for his name's sake. 

' : Come, while the morning of thy life is glowing, 
Ere the dim phantoms thou art chasing die ; 
Ere the gay spell which earth is round thee throwing, 
Fades like the sunset of a summer sky. 

" Life has but shadows, save a promise given, 
Which lights the future with a fadeless ray ; 
Oh, touch the sceptre, win a hope in heaven, 
Come, turn thy spirit from the world away." 



CHAPTER II. 

EVILS TO BE SHUNNED. 

FROM the beginning of time, until now, the shock 
of great calamities has at intervals startled the 
ear of the world. The sad tale of their happening 
has come down through the centuries like the rever- 
berations of angry thunder ; they survive the genera- 
tions, and the narration thrills the sensibilities of each 
in turn. 

Is it the destruction of some rare collection of art 
and learning, such as the Alexandrian Library which 
perished in the flames? Is it the sudden swallowing 
up, or fiery waste of some city, with its helpless 
horror-stricken inhabitants, such as Lisbon and 
Pompeii ? Is it the dead march of some frightful 
plague, like that which in the seventeenth century 
swept its fatal infection over London and plunged 
hundreds daily into the grave? Is it some unlooked- 
for mysterious dash of sorrow that suddenly strikes 
all the light out of a home, and leaves it so hopeless 
a ruin as never to be restored any more ? No matter 
what, there rises before my vision a calamity that 
is unutterable ; a loss that is irreparable, and one that 
is constantly occurring all about us. Who can esti- 
3 (33) 



34 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

mate the swift and total ruin of so many young men, 
a calamity of such frequency as to make the appal- 
ling fact almost a distinction of the times? 

Suppose them to possess average talents, and for 
opportunity, we know they surpass all who have gone 
before them, but all they have in the way of superior 
privilege is defeated, and all they are in personal gifts 
is despoiled of beauty and shorn of power, until the 
vast scope of life shrivels into the narrow limits of 
their own guilty effort and aim. 

Contemplate the compass of their possible attain- 
ments, of what enlargement they were capable, what 
reaches of power their opportunities suggest, and 
how these opportunities, like gates of pearl, swung 
open before their steps ; but all the treasures and 
promise of life have been carried down to be buried 
in the ashes of their own destruction. Oh ! how ir- 
reparable, how dreadful the loss, when a young man, 
soul and body, with all their endowments, is hope- 
lessly ruined. 

Beside that, the waste of the pyramids to dust would 
be a trifle, the burning of the greatest library of 
antiquity is insignificant, and the blotting out of the 
material glory of a great city in the flames of con- 
flagration, but dust in the balance. 

When a young man lays his body down at the 
shrine of vice, and surrenders his immortal mind to 
evils that not only defeat its noble purpose, but de- 
stroy it, he blots out all hope, and is the author of a 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 35 

calamity for which there is neither equivalent nor 
remedy. The loss is irreparable. Oh, how sad that 
it not only should be, but that' the horrid frequency 
of it should lull so many into an indifference that on 
the one hand forbids the lesson of warning, and on 
the other fidelity of effort. 

One is scarce more alarmed at the number in the 
toils of ruin, than at the tardiness with which the im- 
periled learn the lesson each day furnishes. 

Hundreds refuse to learn at all ; giving all advan- 
tage to the many agencies of destruction, they open 
their eyes where they had better be closed, and close 
them where they should always be open. As you 
have seen the ivy twine around the shattered timbers 
of a deserted dwelling, so our young men grow up 
amid the ruins of other lives, but sadly indifferent to 
the causes of such unspeakable disasters, and as seem- 
ingly blind to the sad results that hang all about 
them, just as the fragments of men lie strewn upon a 
battle-field. Here is one who betrays his trusts, the 
secret place of his plunder is found out, and he blows 
his brains out. Here is another, led on by unholy 
love of place and power, who is at last thrust down 
to the blackened infamy of a poor demagogue, to 
pine away in guilty seclusion, or curse the day he 
was born. Here is another who has given himself 
up to sensuality, until, lower than the beasts, his heart 
and brain are as foul as a nest of reptiles. Here is 
another, who from tippling has come to be a drunk- 



36 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

ard, and having already reeled out of all respectable 
service and society, he reels on until crime and death 
overtake him, and to parents, or wife and children, he 
commits the painful legacy of a blasted life and 
memory. Of these, how great is the army in all our 
cities, and daily they die, and daily they are rein- 
forced. The ways and consequences of evil have 
been clearly shown, and it would seem that the young 
would but need to open their eyes to learn wisdom, 
and to escape the perils that beset them on every 
hand. The appeal to reason alone, one would think, 
sufficient to guard the steps and shield the character 
of men from the evils that destroy, but withal, the 
ranks fill up as fast as they diminish. 

I am about to speak of some evils that are in the 
way of men, and have destroyed a multitude ; and 
yet these words will possibly not come to one who is 
not familiar with the consequences of vice in all its 
forms. How terrible and alarming must that defec- 
tion of nature be which leads men to go in the way 
of evil, in the face of knowledge and of visible fact, 
and yet it makes me sad to think of it. There are 
thousands all over the land who are now compara- 
tively pure, who, as the months come and go, will 
follow evil example, unwarned by what they know 
and see, and will leave foot-prints on a pathway that, 
promising everything, gives nothing but ruin and 
death. 

With a harsh beginning, yet the stubborn, reckless 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 37 

blindness of men, concerning evil, would seem to jus- 
tify this complaint of another. " One tires of talking 
to fools, and falls back in sorrow that hell and de- 
struction are never full — in sorrow, that men cannot 
or will not learn that there is but one path to an 
honorable, peaceful, prosperous, and successful life, 
and that all others lead more or less directly to ruin." 

But the great Apostle would not weary of effort, if 
by any means he might only save some, and, while 
sad that so many will be lost, I shall go forward, 
hopeful in the conviction that these simple, frank 
words shall here and there, over this wide land, rescue 
one and another, until in the aggregate there shall be 
a perceptible increase in the number of those who are 
achieving a noble destiny. 

There are some evils in human life which are not 
classified with the ordinary vices, and yet they are so 
pernicious in their results as to deserve no better 
companionship. Among these is the evil of Idleness. 

Pure and voluntary idleness is a lust of the flesh, 
and as a direct evil and an indirect influence has orig- 
inated and promoted the ruin of many a young 
man. There is a time to rest, there is a preference 
of toil, and when the hands have grown weary, and 
the step halts, and the form bends under its snowy 
crown, there is the privilege of quiet and of rest, as 
the twilight gently drops into night ; but idleness 
from a low love of it, is disreputable, and the indolent 
man, the man who despises honorable toil, however 



38 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

humble it be, is a reproach to his Maker, a reflection 
upon his kind, and a drag on society that merits 
punishment and abatement. 

One of the most painful, as well as disgraceful 
sights of the street, and of those evil haunts where 
men gather, is the large number of young men whose 
clothes are threadbare, and whose character is still 
worse worn, from doing nothing. Not because they 
can get nothing to do, but because they prefer to 
lounge and squander life and its gifts in sinful idle- 
ness. It is ominous of evil, and the outlook for these 
is without a ray of light or hope. A large proportion 
of the crime for which honest and industrious people 
must sometimes suffer and pay comes of indolence. 

There is no good in it ; every noble mind will de- 
spise it, and yet such is the home-training and the 
social order in many places, and such is often the 
false idea of dignity and self-respect which many en- 
tertain, that great encouragement is given to this evil. 

Besides, there is not a little in human nature to 
foster it. Mr. Smiles, in one of his books, tells of one, 
who meeting an intelligent foreigner who had traveled 
over much of the world, asked him what one charac- 
teristic of human nature impressed him most in his 
observation among men. He replied in broken 
English, "Me tink dat all men love lazy." Every 
young man has had at some time an experience cor- 
responding to this, and by it let all be warned against 
an evil which is vastly greater than it seems to be. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 39 

The indolent man is very old, and a master hand of 
the far by-gone time furnishes the best photograph 
of him we have. Solomon says — " Slothfulness cast- 
eth into a deep sleep ; and an idle so-ul shall suffer 
hunger. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard ? 
when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?" The picture 
implies that some one has called to him, has laid hold 
of and shook him; but stupid, like one under the in- 
fluence of an opiate, he turns over and mutters, " Yet 
a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the 
hands to sleep." What a time-waster such a man is. 
The lark is up with the dawn, and circling away into 
the heavens, has warbled his sweet anthem of praise 
to God, but not the lazy man, though his endow- 
ments are vastly greater; long since the honest, 
humble toiler, the successful merchant, and the youth 
of noble purpose, have entered upon their pursuit ; 
but the indolent man, who eats his bread by the sweat 
of a nobler brow than his own, sleeps on, a breathing, 
snoring thing, but far from a high-minded living man. 
Everything about him comports with his character, 
and discovers his shame. How true to life the de- 
scription of Solomon. " I went by the field of the 
slothful, and by the vineyard o«f the man void of 
understanding ; and lo ! it was all grown over with 
thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and 
the stone wall thereof was broken down." " By much 
slothfulness the building decayeth ; and through idle- 
ness of the hands, the house droppeth through." 



40 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

This is a graphic description of the waste and 
shame of idleness. For the idler there is not a word 
of commendation between the lids of the Bible. A 
man will get some good out of a boil on his flesh, 
and to society there is some advantage in a penuri- 
ous man ; he is a standing testimony against useless 
extravagance, but I cannot think of any service com- 
ing from a lazy man ; he irritates me ; he hinders 
me, for I may not be able to put him out of my way 
if he happen to be in it. " As vinegar to the teeth, 
and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them 
that send him." I shall hope to impress upon your 
minds, my young friends, the fact that idleness from 
choice, simply because it is a man's temper, a disease 
in his bones, is not more destructive than it is dis- 
graceful. It matters not how wealthy your father 
may be, or how much you may have been favored in 
the choice of a mother-in-law, idleness is wholly in- 
excusable, and utterly degrading. 

Come to love indolence, and it will be to your man- 
hood what frost is to the flower, what the moth is to 
the garment, and what the rust is to the iron. I 
know of nothing noble in humanity, nothing great in 
any relation of human life that this evil will not. blight 
and consume. 

No true civilization, no sound government, no 
healthful social order, no real and general prosperity 
can be sustained and promoted in the community or 
nation, without industry, and the hearty exercise of 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 4 1 

all the avocations of life which require the employ- 
ment of men's hands and brains. The industry of 
a community or nation has an indirect influence upon 
the morals and happiness of the people, and who de- 
spises honest work, either from education or condi- 
tion, not only harms himself and the community in 
which he lives, buj is unworthy the nature God has 
given him, and by which he is distinguished from the 
lower orders of creation. God has dignified work by 
activities that are as countless as they are benevolent. 
The Son of God was no idler. He said, " My Father 
worketh hitherto, and I work." Adam was not to 
sleep away his time, nor lounge on the grass and by 
the streams in the garden. Honest, joyous work 
may be of the humblest sort, but it is not a curse but 
an ordination of God, and greatly conducive to hu- 
man happiness. To carry your own load, to do your 
own drudgery when circumstances require, is some- 
times not considered in keeping with one's rank and 
position; but the vain and indolent spirit that suggests 
and justifies such an opinion is vastly below the faith- 
ful ministry of the humblest servant. A truly great 
man will deem the commonest service, if it be right, 
no disgrace, but a real dignity. Since the Lord of 
glory came to the earth and sweat both the sweat of 
agony and of effort, the humblest toiler on the street, 
and the lowest servant in the dwelling, may do their 
work to the glory of God, and beside the indolent 
man, be he son of royal, or of merchant prince, these 



42 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

despised and often slighted ones must be held in 
noble pre-eminence. 

But, what a source of evil idleness is to the moral 
nature. What an immense advantage Satan, the flesh 
and the world find in the laziness of their victim. It 
unhinges the whole man, and baffles all his powers 
like the paralysis of a fatal disease. Burton, in his 
"Anatomy of Melancholy," says, " Idleness is the 
bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, the 
chief mother of all mischief, one of the seven deadly 
sins, the devil's cushion, his pillow, and chief reposal. 
* * * As in a standing pool worms and filthy, creep- 
ers increase, so do evil and corrupt thoughts in 
an idle person ; the soul is contaminated. * * * Thus 
much I dare boldly say ; he or she that is idle, be 
they of what condition they will, never so rich, so 
well allied, fortunate, happy — let them have all 
things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish 
and desire, all contentment — so long as he, or she, or 
they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well 
in body or mind, but weary still, sickly still, vexed 
still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, sus- 
pecting, offended with the world, with every object, 
wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away 
with some foolish phantasy or other." The evil of 
indolence is universal, and it is marvelous that par- 
ents and youths are so blind to the very injurious in- 
fluence it exerts upon every part of our being, and 
upon our life and destiny. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 43 

Sir Walter Scott, himself a prodigious worker, 
wrote to his son at school, " I cannot too much im- 
press upon your mind that labor is the condition 
which God has imposed on us in every station of 
life ; there is nothing worth having that can be had 
without it, from the bread which the peasant wins 
with the sweat of his brow, to the sports by which 
the rich man must get rid of his ennui. * * * * 
Labor, therefore, my dear boy, and improve the time. 
In youth our steps are light, and our minds are duc- 
tile, and knowledge is easily laid up, but if we neglect 
our spring, our summers will be useless and con- 
temptible ; our harvest will be chaff; and the winter 
of our old age unrespected and desolate." 

From the great and good in all time comes testi- 
mony to the value of industry and the dignity of 
toil, but idleness is without commendation, and every- 
where reprobated as a scourge to be shunned. In 
condemning idleness, I would rescue labor, the 
humblest useful service, from the thought of disre- 
spect which the young are so apt to attach to it, es- 
pecially those whom fortune has favored, and who 
have been reared by mistaken parents to look upon 
it as a condition necessitated by external circum- 
stances, rather than by the law of our being and the 
appointment of God. What vanity ! what selfish- 
ness ! what unmanly contempt! what weakness such a 
thought and habit produces in human nature, until 
one sometimes must blush for his race, and wonder 



44 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

that what God made so noble should fall so low. It 
is some compensation that such caricatures of men, 
now and then, meet the rebuke they merit from those 
whose names are written on the scroll of the immor- 
tal. 

A well-dressed and highly perfumed young man 
came to the market in Richmond, Va., in the early 
morning. He purchased a turkey, but the keeper of 
the stall did not find it convenient to send it to his 
home, whereupon, in language that cannot be re- 
peated, he protested. A plainly dressed and elderly 
gentleman, with basket on his arm, hearing his vio- 
lent philippic, approached the fastidious young man 
and remarked, " I am going by your house ; I will 
carry the fowl for you." He assented and gave it to 
him. When he reached the home of the young cox- 
comb, he delivered his charge, and was offered a 
small sum for his services. He declined the offer, 
saying: " It was no trouble, sir; I am happy to have 
served you." Finding that his servant would take 
nothing, the young man wished to know his name. 
He answered, " My name is Marshall," and hastened 
on. And Mr. Marshall was Chief Justice of the 
United States, but eminent as he was, he was not 
above the humblest service, and in this was one of 
the elements of his greatness. It is to be hoped the 
young man learned a lesson he greatly needed, and 
unless utterly blinded by his vanity and false notions 
of self-respect, one which he would not soon forget. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 45 

There is noble discipline in work, in serving others, 
and indolence throws of! restraints that no one, es- 
pecially the young, can dispense with without serious 
harm. In such a case, the truest development of our 
nature must be interfered with, and character and 
life will be narrow and helpless to achieve a noble 
destiny. 

Parents ill-treat their offspring when they rear 
them to hate labor, and to inherit wealth ; it is not 
long until many such are stung by every vice, 
vitiated with its poison, and damned by its penalty. 
Young men, if you would grow upward, if you 
would be useful and happy, be industrious ; have 
some employment worthy of one who can boast such 
an origin and such powers. Scorn mean and sin- 
ful occupations, such as 'harm men and ruin souls. 
Let not the ant, and the spider, and the bee rebuke 
you. Be something more and better than nice, 
straight, polished walking-sticks that have no power 
of self-movement. Do not rush, but work steadily, 
patiently on. It is God's grand way. 

" The wheels of his chariot are not bespattered by 
the mud of blustering and reckless haste." But 
there is no excuse here for indolence. Oh ! how 
much there is, and how noble the work that waits 
every day for your accomplishment. Suffer not the 
Apostle to set you in the long row of those who 
stand all the day idle, and say to you, " Let him that 
stole, steal no more, but rather let him labor, work- 



40 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

ing with his hands the thing which is good." 
Rather let the wise man put this crown on your 
head, — 

" Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall 
stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean 
men." 

" That like an emmet thou must ever toil, 
Is the sad sentence of an ancient date — 
And certes, there is for it reason great ; 
For though it sometimes make thee weep and wail, 

And curse thy stars, and early rise and late, 
Without e'en this would come a heavier bale — ■ 
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale." 

A second evil to be shunned is Sinful Extravagance. 
This and the former are not far apart ; they are near 
of kin. 

Solomon says — " He that is. slothful in his work is 
brother to him that is a great waster." 

Indolence begets prodigality, and nothing but lack 
of opportunity will save an idle man from extrava- 
gance. In any event, he has at his disposal precious 
time and other gifts which he squanders, and in real 
worth these are far above any material treasures over 
which he may have control. It is the disposition, the 
profession of an idler to waste, and I would say with 
emphasis to every young man, that you will never 
learn to appreciate and employ the numerous forces 
of life until you have adopted the virtues of whole- 
some industry and economy, and placed them among 
the laws of your life. 

With young men the temptation to extravagance is 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 4/ 

strong. It is especially so in cities where fashionable 
life has such predominance, and where so many silly 
people rival each other in costly display. 

I would never have you be selfish, nor penur- 
ious ; there is no excellence in either of these, but 
better be these than a reckless, sinful waster. The 
turtle has some pleasure, and is of some service in its 
own narrow shell ; but scattered about piecemeal 
every whither, it must be utterly useless. Mean as 
are selfishness and penuriousness, some good will 
come of them ; but wastefulness is a vice that con- 
sumes continually. Money represents value ; rightly 
used, it stands for happiness, for relief, for success, for 
real and permanent good, and he who squanders it in 
the display and gratification of those elements of his 
nature that should be mastered and not cultivated, is 
a wicked offender, and brings great harm to himself 
and others. Few greater calamities can happen to a 
young maa than abundance of money, without capac- 
ity to use it wisely and well. But others than the 
sons of the rich often become wasters and vagabond 
spendthrifts. The disposition to emulate the example 
of gay associates, who from bad home-training, or a 
remuneration for service which all do not have, live 
luxuriantly, is strong. It is a common temptation 
against which young men need to set themselves like 
flint, if they would avoid great moral imbecility, and 
becoming nothing but well-dressed fops, without the 
muscle and nerve of a noble manhood. 



48 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

And when this greedy lust has once fastened upon 
a young man, what will he not do to keep up appear- 
ances, especially when extremity comes upon him? 
It is not so easy to give up the fast horse, the gay 
equipage, the fashionable evening supper, and the 
elaborate wardrobe, with its trimming of ebony cane, 
opera-glass, seal-ring, and what not. 

These showy, superficial ornaments become identi- 
fied with the affections, and aspirations, and thoughts 
of the being who finds his chief pleasure in them, 
until they constitute the very standard of his destiny. 
No heathen was ever more devoted to his dumb idol 
than are some young men to these shams that do not 
so much hide, as set off in offensive display the 
weakness of a nature, which in all its ruin, is worthy 
of a better commendation. When one finds it easy, 
a very passion of his own being, so to waste what may 
be put to good account, it is not strange that after a 
while he finds it just as easy to squander the money 
of others, and rather than come down from his false 
eminence he will do it. Extravagance, living beyond 
one's means, is one of the curses of modern society, 
and a most prolific source of crime. How young men 
are often drawn into this whirlpool. Sometimes 
their parents lead the way, sometimes their companions, 
sometimes their employers, often their own folly, and 
then there is the powerful, general influence of pleasure- 
loving and fashion-adoring society, by which they are 
surrounded ; where do they not see it ? It rustles by 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 49 

them, and sits with them in our very churches; but 
oftener and gayer it confronts them in the ball-room, 
in the theatre and opera, and elsewhere, and they are 
swept along in the glittering current, until hundreds 
of them are destroyed by the crimes which follow. 
A vast amount of the misery of families, and of the 
dishonesty, fraud, and theft that mark the times, is 
traceable to this prevalent defection in society. But its 
worst evil is not the derangement and disturbance of 
the peace of society. It destroys every moral senti- 
ment, and withers away every power and virtue of 
the soul. 

Not so many lives perish in the sea to-day as are 
hopelessly ingulfed in the tide of extravagance and 
fashion. What is there in a mind and heart devoted 
to such a life, to which even the truth of God can 
appeal with hope of success. We despise the ragged 
vicious tramp, but on the same broad road are thou- 
sands richly dressed, and with gilded equipage, and 
who are more rapidly rushing to the same destruction. 
They glow in the sunlight, they cheer, they sing, they 
dance to bewitching melody, and a gaping deluded 
mass follow in their train, but so went Pharaoh's 
host, and they too shall halt and perish in the midst 
of the sea. Then what a mockery this dash and flash 
of earthly pomp and show. It is the certain fate of 
godless extravagance. Such a man lives to no pur- 
pose but a bad purpose, and when he dies, he dies as 
the fool dieth. There may be a costly funeral and an 
4 



50 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

expensive panegyric, but there will be no angel convoy, 
no shouting in the sweet heavens, but a crash, as 
if a " wandering star, for whom is reserved the black- 
ness of darkness forever," had fallen. 

Young men, beware of this insidious, this flattering 
destroyer. However limited your means, live within 
them, and if possible, lay by something for the higher 
purposes of life. If you cannot always do what 
others do, do what you can, above all things do what 
you ought. The standard of conduct in any relation 
of life, is not the capacity, much less the empty dis- 
play of those about you. Assert your sovereignty 
and give the sceptre to your moral self, and never al-. 
low so trifling and sinful a thing as show or passion 
to dictate what you shall be and do. 

Remember that the angels never turn to gaze on 
gayety, and fashion, and waste, but truthfulness and 
honesty and manliness and ennobling benevolence, at- 
tract their attention and secure their benediction. It 
is a humiliating spectacle to see all of a young man 
in the clothes he wears. I pity the drunkard as he 
reels away in his rags; I compassionate the man who 
by some provoked violent outburst of temper, or some 
mighty temptation, is hurried into crime ; but for the 
self-conceited, prodigal spendthrift, my sympathy is 
weak. He is unsightly, out of place, and has but 
little claim on the common compassion of .humanity. 
If your income be ever so ample, never stoop to sin- 
ful extravagance. If God gives you money, there are 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 5 I 

a thousand ways in which you may use it, so that 
it will be promotive of your own best nature and 
happiness, and secure to you an immortality that the 
costliest shaft cannot perpetuate. It is no credit to a 
man's memory to have woven about it the faded, 
tawdry laurels of a Beau Brummell. His name illus- 
trates the folly and fate, and suggests the warning of 
the evil I have brought to your notice. Proud and 
conceited, he was " the intimate of the nobility, the 
despot of the realms of taste." But what can a but- 
terfly do when the black tempest charges in the sky? 
He fell to abject poverty, became the jest and sport 
of children in the street, and forsaken by his superfi- 
cial friends, he was left to die in a mad-house. What 
a poor and contemptible life ! what a waste of exist- 
ence ! 

But could you expect a better harvest from such 
a sowing? Here, as elsewhere, whatsoever a man sow- 
eth, that shall he also reap. If you would have your 
character developed after the best method, and your 
life to be most fruitful in usefulness and happiness, 
then live frugal, spend where it will do most for your 
higher, not your lower nature, gather up the frag- 
ments that nothing be lost. 

" Use this world, as not abusing it; for the fashion 
of this world passeth away." 

There is a logical connection in the cause of evil, 
and there are certain sinful pleasures which are sure 
to follow these I have mentioned. It is the privilege 



52 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

of youth to be happy, and I would put no check ijpon 
that innocent joy that belongs as much to the young 
as singing does to the birds, and beauty and fragrance 
do to the flowers. With such limits as right defines, I 
can respond heartily to the sentiment of the wise man, 
" Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth ; and let thy 
heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in 
the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes." 

There are a thousand glittering cups from which 
you may drink and go unharmed. God in this great 
world has made ample provision for the faculty of en- 
joyment in human nature, and I would do what I 
could to make you happy. But I would have you 
remember that all sinful pleasures are sources of pain, 
and that true happiness comes of our becoming as 
God would have us to be. An angel knows neither 
pain of misfortune, nor pang of regret. The nature 
is in harmony with itself and with God, and therefore, 
happy. One of the calamities of youth is a disposi- 
tion to find pleasure where it is spurious and sinful. 
The natural bent is not to drink from those crystal 
fountains, which starting at the throne, flow in so 
many and beautiful streams everywhere. 

Then, these evil pleasures are very insidious, and 
get much advantage from the claim of harmlessness 
which is accorded them by those who occupy posi- 
tions of prominence, and profess to be contributors 
to the moral character and habit of the people. It 
not unfrequently happens that the very worst and 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 53 

most expensive of these pleasures, are most attractive 
to young men. They are discussed and applauded in 
places of business, and at boarding-houses, and in the 
social club, and one after another they are drawn into 
the net, and at length yield to a sorcery that itself 
never yields, until all power of resistance is gone. 
Some of these pleasures are secret, they blush in the 
light, they are unmentionable, except where the light 
is darkness. What a fire-girt way it is, and yet, de- 
spite the blistered, reeking wrecks that lie all along, 
there are more to follow. 

You have set your heart upon wicked enjoyment 
that must not come to the light ; by night you have 
planned, you have dreamed about it ; in sullied im- 
agination, perchance you have passed through it 
all ; you looked here, and looked there, forgetting to 
look up; you hushed the feeble start of a weakening 
conscience, and then, in horrid glee, you said — 
" ready ! " A little hesitant, a little cowardly, it may 
be with a blush that darkened on your soul, like a 
black, muttering cloud on the face of the sun, you have 
gone on, and stealthily you advanced, as a tiger creeps 
through the jungle, observant of every flash of unwel- 
come light, and then halting suddenly at some ghostly 
sound that sobbed in the rising wind, and then you 
goaded your courage, and moved on, and now you 
are there, and the fires of passion burn fast, and your 
soul crisps in the flame. And now the hellish en- 
chantment is over, and lo ! what a change! The 



54 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

heavens and the earth are different, every ray of light 
is a sword, there is poison in every whiff of air, the 
children seem to fly from you as if you were the 
keeper of hell, passers-by seem to shun you as if your 
black guilt were known, and you, who perchance 
went out to pluck harmless fruit, come back carrying 
the fiery sheaves of damnation. There was a time 
when you had no thought of going so far; of course 
not; but you find yourself no exception to the general 
rule and law, now that you have fallen. You went 
on, and only found out by bitter experience what you 
knew before, and has been true from the beginning, 
and now your footprints are blotted out and you 
know not the way back. " None so blind as he, the 
eyes of whose soul have been put out." 

God pity the young man, who turns all the sources 
of his life into so many stagnant, filthy pools, from 
which vile streams of thought and desire issue, wast- 
ing him as they roll on. " Remember," says Starr 
King, "that the innermost woe of self-indulgence and 
intemperate pleasure is the vicious imagination they 
create and the turbid heart they leave, which, like the 
troubled sea, casts up mire and dirt to pollute the 
transparent medium in which God invites us to dwell. 
When the vice of license becomes despotic in a soul, 
it soils all the purity of God's art and bounty. The 
world is clean and lovely, as on the first day ; but the 
impure soul has thickened the light, and virtually 
turned nature into a wide fen. * * * It is one ele- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 5 5 

ment of water that is distilled by Providence for the 
refreshment of man. Pure and tasteless, it is tempted 
by the sunshine out of the sea, and is wrung from 
cloudy sponges upon the hillsides, to be distributed 
underground for the universal need. Yet how 
variously in taste and wholesomeness it bubbles 
finally for our using ! It gets the quality of the 
earth ; it is penetrated by the influence of the chalk 
layers, the beds of limestone, the clay deposits, the 
granite, the mineral floors, the swampy regions, 
through which it filters, and from which it issues into 
light. Ah! and if a snake has his home at the 
spring where it bubbles for our drinking, of what 
consequence is it that it dropped at first cleaner than 
a seraph's tears upon a mountain peak, and has taken 
no stain on its passage, if poison drip from that crea- 
ture to mix with all its pulses at last ? " And what 
the sublime and holy source whence you sprang, what 
the purity and skill of the hand that molded you, if 
out of vile and secret passions which you nourish, 
you taint every stream and blot every glory of your 
being? Young man, more than you would shun a 
deadly viper, shun those secret pleasures which are 
set on fire of hell, and hurry men to their swift and 
everlasting destruction. 

Following all this, come some sinful pleasures, of 
which I may speak with more freedom, and which 
imperil the young. Among these, I designate the 
play-lwitse as one. I am aware that the theatre has 



56 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

its advocates among respectable, and even professedly 
Christian people ; but I think it is generally conceded 
now, at least among those who are doing most for the 
morals and happiness of men, that the general influ- 
ence of the theatre is bad, and the Church is right in 
setting her face against it like flint. I know there is 
a difference, some are low,- very low, and others are 
higher toned ; but in either case, the end is selfish, 
and Satan has a free pass. to all of them. No man, 
in his sober senses, thinks of the theatre under any 
circumstances as an agency for the promotion of 
morals. The whole method and purpose of it con- 
tradicts such a claim, and its entire history makes the 
plea the extremest folly. Whatever be its tone, the 
audience is very mixed, and the theatre-goer does 
not feel himself much out of place, whether confronted 
by the low attractions of the ballet, or by the more 
refined charms of a drama. There is not a theatre on 
the continent that is not now and again a disgrace 
to woman, and an appeal to the basest passions of 
man. 

From the door to the wall behind the scenes the 
theatre is a snare to, and a destroyer of youth. None 
but the angels of the pit ever minister there, and all 
its tinsel, and blaze of light, and gorgeous trimming 
and upholstery, and bewitching music, are but de- 
graded beauty hung on the way to ruin. It is the 
sanctuary of Satan's trinity, " the lust of the flesh, 
and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 57 

But you say professors of religion go to the the- 
atre. I own it with sorrow. It was a professor of re- 
ligion that betrayed the Son of God. Professors of 
religion often do things that religion does not sanction. 
And it is a poor defense of the theatre that a profes- 
sor of religion once in a while finds more in the play- 
house to harmonize with his taste than he finds in the 
house of God. Young man, do you want such a 
Christian to speak to you on the subject of salvation, 
or to pray at your bedside when dying ? I believe 
such a one, under such circumstances, would be re- 
volting to you. .Well, it is not any more to the 
weight of the argument, that in the performance of 
either of these holy offices, you are not likely to be 
troubled with such. 

Christians that attend theatres are not given to 
speaking to men about their souls, nor do they pray 
at the bedside of the dying. Among the stories of 
the ancients is this : A holy monk reproached the 
devil for stealing a young man who was found at the 
theatre. He promptly replied : " I found him on my 
premises and took him." Suffer me, young men ! 
Has Christ any share in this kind of pleasure ? Do 
the beatitudes of God fall there ? Are theatre-going 
men and women the best parents ? \he best citizens ? 
the best Christians ? Of two young men, which will 
be preferred in the store, in the family, in the Sunday- 
school, in the church — the one who attends, or does 
not attend the theatre? I have said nothing good 



• 



58 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

of this f^rm of amusement, and only because I know 
nothing good to say of it. 

Let it suffice that the majority of the young men 
who frequent the theatre, are wasted in body'and soul 
by its influence and finally lost. One thing is certain, 
and I submit if there be not strong argument in it : 
the religion of the Bible and the pleasures of the the- 
atre are utterly incompatible ; they can no more be 
harmonized than oil and water can be mixed. Which 
will you give up ? 

Another of these sinful pleasures following in order, 
and that has come into unusual prominence of late 
years, is racing. My hope dies fast for a young man 
when I find that he is devoted to the race-course. I 
cannot long commend him for honesty and truthful- 
ness, to say nothing of religion, when he has made a 
god of the turf. His feet will run faster in the way 
of evil now, than his blooded steed can make the heat 
of the race. The whole tendency of this kind of 
sport is baneful. The race-course is a haunt for 
gamblers. I know the plea is set up that it is a 
school for horses. Let it be so; but can, or shall 
horses only be developed at the sacrifice of men ? 
Which is better for the community ? a herd of fast 
horses, or a band of criminals, imperiling society by 
their violation of the laws of God and man ? Be- 
sides, this amusement is not more demoralizing 
than it is cruel. We would be shocked at the low 
and barbarous bull-fights, such as celebrated the mar- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 59 

riage of the king of Spain a few years ago, and at 
which holy priests are always present, to administer 
the last sacrament, in case the enraged brute gets the 
advantage of his more brutal antagonist. 

But how much less cruel is horse-racing ! If it 
must be, I am sure it is no place for noble-minded 
young men. It will not stimulate a noble thing in 
you, but open many a gateway of temptation which 
you will find it hard to resist, and entering, will dis- 
cover the downward way both steep and fatal. 

Bear with me while I allude to yet one more sinful 
indulgence which, following in the wake of these, is 
exerting a lamentable influence among the young to- 
day. 

It is bad reading. 

You will very generally find the indolent, extrava- 
gant, licentious, theatre-loving man given to vicious, 
trashy reading. If he read at all, it is not strange 
that he should select something that accords with his 
taste. And he will find the supply equal to the 
demand. The whole land is flooded with impure 
literature, and much of it is nothing but a stream of 
the vilest filth. There are leprous ^ newspapers, 
leprous novels, and books that are never opened in 
any respectable or refined presence. There are men 
who live to disseminate this kind of poison. They 
are " cancer-planters," and beside them the lowest 
thief is a gentleman, and the foulest tramp a prince. 
They destroy more lives than the assassin, and have 



60 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

less right to live than the murderer who, in a fit of 
passion or intoxication, slays his companion. Much 
of this literature but forms " the common sewers of 
society, into which drains the concentrated filth of the 
worst passions, of the worst creatures, of the worst 
cities." Many profess to teach a moral. It is false. 
They teach just the opposite. We have no need to 
go to a brothel, or to perdition, to learn morality. 
Virtue is a flower that never grows in such soil, and 
it would be a reversion of all moral order to expect 
any good from a source so vile. The pure white 
snow will fall, and the flowers will bloom on a grave, 
but neither can do away with the corruption within. 

Then there is a class of literature that is light and 
trifling, without sense or brains. It is a loss of time 
to read it. Cast all this aside as you would an in- 
fected garment. The young man, who reads and 
loves to read vicious, obscene books, that stain the 
imagination and imbrute the whole nature, and that 
he would blush to have mother and sister see, is not 
any better than the criminal who traffics in them. It 
is hideous to see a vulture perched on a carrion, its 
talons and beak buried in the putrid flesh. If the 
figure is not elegant, the analogy, I am sure, is forcible. 

It is proper for you, young men, to enrich your- 
selves with the spoils of all pure literature (and what 
a magnificent field you have), but he who would read 
and make a favorite of a bad book, whether by an 
infidel or a libertine, simply because it contains a 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 6 1 

beautiful passage here or there, or for any other 
cause, has denied himself, and " might as well caress 
the hand of an assassin because of the jewelry which 
sparkles on its fingers." Read what will contribute 
to noble manhood now, and in after life will be a 
pleasant memory, and you will bless God for any 
shield that warded off any temptation you may have 
had to godless reading. 

Hear again the words of Solomon. " Rejoice, O 
young man, in thy youth-; and let thy heart cheer 
thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways 
of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes ; but 
know thou, that for all these things God will bring 
thee into judgment." 

Solomon links warning with privilege. Remember, 
that pleasure is highest and purest, and only safe, 
when God approves it, and before whom, with every 
other portion of thy life, it must pass. 

" Why should we think youth's draught of joy, 
If pure, would sparkle less ? 
Why should the cup the sooner cloy, 
Which God hath deigned to bless?" 



CHAPTER III. 

EVIL AND ITS RESISTANCE. 

THE Bible is an old book, and in its warnings 
against evil it is like the lighthouses that skirt the 
coast ; they are not all in one place, but flash out all 
along the way. There is an impressive lesson in the 
antiquity of evil itself. The same temptations, the 
same perils that lurk in our pathway, entangled the 
careless feet of those who have gone before us, and 
the same crimes that shocked the world then, shock 
it now. 

Human nature is substantially alike in all ages; and 
unrestrained by Divine power, it follows in the beaten 
path that others have trodden before it. 

When Solomon counsels young men to, "enter not 
into the path of the wicked, and to go not in the way 
of evil men," he gets the lesson from his own experi- 
ence. If you have not yet fallen into the toils of 
'evil, you have great advantage in the warning of the 
past. But with all that volume of testimony against 
wrong, you have the common disadvantage of an in- 
ternal bias toward the evil. It is a sad confession, 
but the unanswerable witness of human nature itself 
is, that man is fallen. 

" The carnal mind is enmity against God." " The 
(62) ' 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 6} 

heart is ^deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked." And yet, " Out of the heart are the issues 
of -life." In God we live and move, and have our 
being; and yet each man is a universe within himself, 
and from within you may brighten or blacken every- 
thing with which you come in contact. We cannot 
exist without God a moment; and yet the complexion 
and power of life is within us, and flows out of us, to 
be felt for good or ill by multitudes. I must not for- 
get, then, to remind you of your peril from within, no 
less than from without. If all external temptation 
were removed, you would be by no means safe. You 
need nothing more than to be saved from yourselves. 
What cruel tyrants, what overpowering monsters 
dripping with uncleanness, a man's thoughts and de- 
sires often are, and what a brood of them often nestle 
in the heart of a young man ! Dr. Arnot, whose 
name is known, and now that he has gone to heaven, 
whose memory is revered on two continents, says : 
" Thoughts have wings. They pass and repass unob- 
served. They issue forth. from their home in the 
heart, and expatiate over every forbidden field, and 
return like doves to their windows, through the air, 
leaving no track of their path. These thoughts be- 
come acquainted with sin. They are accustomed to 
visit the haunts of vice without detection. They 
revel unchecked in every unclean thing. They open 
up the way, and prepare a trodden path on which the 
man may follow. 



64 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

"A gossamer thread is attached to an arrow, and 
shot through the air unseen, over an impassable 
chasm. Fixed on the other side, it is sufficient- to 
draw over a cord ; the cord draws over a rope ; and 
the rope draws over a bridge, by which a highway is 
opened for all comers. * * The sober youth stands 
on the solid platform of religious and moral worth. 
No one can think it possible that he should go over 
to the other side. But from the brink on this side he 
darts over a thought which makes itself fast to some- 
thing on those forbidden regions. The film no one 
saw, as it sped through the air ; but it has made good 
a lodgment in that kingdom of darkness, and the 
deeds of wickedness will quickly follow when the 
way has been prepared. ' Out of the heart,' said he 
who knows it, 'proceed evil thoughts.' Yes — that is 
what we expected ; but what came out next ? 
Murders, adulteries, fornication, false witness, blas- 
phemies." 

A horrible gang ! How quickly they come on ! 
How closely they follow their leaders ! 

What a troubled, impure sea may rage within you ; 
and when its 'waves dash over, how they waste the 
source, and carry desolation in their flow ! But for 
internal defection, all external evil would fail. 

What is it that makes what we see and feel from 
without often a source and means of ruin? Is it not 
a clamor from within, a greed, a lust that demands 
gratification? Man's nature is not a jumble of con- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 65 

fusion; it moves in response to law; but if the law be 
perverted or over-ridclen by base passion, it will still 
respond to instincts that in themselves indicate the 
wisdom of the Creator, and because they were meant 
for good, they become efficient agents of evil when 
degraded by sin. So there is an instinct especially 
manifest in the young, which seeks association. The 
love of companionship belongs to the economy of 
human life. And if one's company be elevating, it is 
easy to see the wisdom of the ordination. The ivy 
wants a trellis about which to entwine itself, and this 
feature of the natural world, I may say, is peculiar to 
the young, and where there is caution in the selection 
of our associates, this blending of nature and inter- 
ests is no ordinary blessing. God has given such ex- 
cellence of endowment that it is not good for us to 
be alone. We are the better of companionship with 
others, provided that there be no moral disparity be- 
tween us. The law of imitation responds with such 
force to example, that the company a man keeps be- 
comes one of the most important things in human 
life. Right companionship is a quickener of character, 
and will do much to make the life of a young man 
sunny and musical. And whilst there will be a dis- 
position to seek such company as measures up to his 
own moral standard, there will always be the tempta- 
tion to go with, and in the way of, men who are 
vicious, and whose power of evil will seek to master 
your own better habits ; and against this common evil 
5 



66 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

of Bad Companions, allow me now affectionately to 
warn you. 

" Examples preach to the eye — 

"Care, then," mine says, 

" Not how you end, but how you spend your days." 

And to this couplet I may add, with whom ! 
Where character is not thoroughly established, and 
the life is not buttressed about by principle and 
experience, it is not the good that overcomes the evil, 
in social fellowship, but the evil that overcomes the 
good. The bad man always has the advantage over 
the merely virtuous man in social contact. " Know 
ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." 
" Evil communications corrupt good manners." The 
power of evil to insinuate itself and destroy the good, 
is unquestionable, and largely because it finds so 
much in common in what it touches. 

A young man may have been well reared, and he 
may himself be virtuous; but if he selects his associ- 
ates out of choice from the vicious, no matter with 
what temper of will he may resolve to resist their 
evil habits, such a friendly concession as he has made 
will so expose him to the insidious approaches of 
evil as, together with that law of his being which 
gives his soul up to the molding power of example, 
will make him a victim of the evil. 

I know not where evil has such success, and such 
strange attraction, and such transforming power, as 
in its own vision in the example of others. A star 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 67 

may be very bright, but if clouds gather about it from 
every quarter of the heavens, it is not the light you 
see any more, unless it be the wild, sharp flash that 
but reveals the depth of the darkness. And so a 
young man may have some moral lustre, but if he 
stands alone amid the polluted example of evil com- 
panions, it will not be long until others will notice 
quicker than he that he has conformed to their image, 
and so responded to the universal law. What else 
did poor Byron illustrate, when out of the dark depths 
of his degradation and misery he wrote : 

"Ah vice, how soft are thy voluptuous ways ! 

While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape 
The fascination of thy magic gaze ? 

A cherub hydra round us dost thou gape, 

And mold to every taste thy dear delusive shape." 

Let vice be inwoven with an age corresponding to 
your own, with a kindly, accommodating manner, 
with much pretension of friendship, and with that 
love of enjoyment which is characteristic of youth, 
and what a power it has ; how readily it wins, and 
how discontent it is until its new victim has formed 
to its likeness. It usually requires but little time, and 
the young man, who, when he yielded to the snare, 
had some moral sense, now finds that " like begets 
like," and a godless unity binds him to his associates. 
What multitudes are thus destroyed ! 

Then, again, great advantage comes to evil com- 
panions, in the element of curiosity which character- 



68 • LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

izes human nature. The young man, erect, noble and 
virtuous, stands on the threshold of his country home; 
his mother's arms are about him, she kisses him, and 
as she turns away to wipe the tear from her cheek, 
and then around to look longingly and lovingly after 
him, she wonders what will be his fate. Far more 
than he does, she realizes and fears the -perils of the 
great city to which he has gone. She has warned 
him, and extorted this promise and that from him; 
but it was mother, she was always afraid where there 
is no danger, and the promises were made to satisfy 
her. The poor youth has a mind of his own, and he 
has seen something of the world, and he would give 
little for a young man who could not take care of 
himself. So he reasons. He reaches his destination. 
It is a new world, and full of wonder to him. How 
often his first peril is that of which I am speaking. 
Evil companions — he meets them in the office, in the 
store where he is employed, in the school he is attend- 
ing, in the boarding house where he lives. How 
soon they spread their hellish nets for his feet, how 
they caress him with their blandishments, and at his 
faint remonstrance chide him for his weakness, which, 
wounding his pride, he resents by striking hands with 
them ; and now, not content to believe that — 

"Ignorance is bliss 
Where 'tis folly to be wise,'' 

he goes with the tempter to see the sights. How 
curious! how brilliant! how tempting! how fruitful 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 69 

of fatal charm ! for over all these ways has not the 
devil thrown the shreds of an angel's garb ? 

At first his sensibilities are slightly shocked, but 
he has committed himself; these who lead him along 
are his companions, and they will taunt him to-morrow 
if he retrace his steps now, and the dark angel 
whispers, " Harmless," in his ear, and the revulsion 
gives way; and fallen to the level of those about 
him, he can now believe what they believe, and at last 
the name his loving mother gave him, and the minis- 
ter pronounced under the holy effulgence of the awful 
Trinity, is written boldly on the guilty roll of evil 
companions. Oh ! how often this picture has its 
repetition among foolish, incautious young men. 
And now the molding begins, nor does it take long. 
One by one the memories of home, the pure and 
simple habits of the earlier and better life, are counted 
tame, good enough for mother or the elder brother 
who has not come to the far country where men 
waste their substance in riotous living, but not for 
this youth who has fallen among such clever associ- 
ates; and they are all expunged from his character. 
Ah, yes, when purity and glory are quenched in an 
angel, what is he but a hideous devil ? and when a 
young man strips off all the insignia of virtue, and all 
the nobility of his manhood, that there may be an 
awful consonance between himself and his mates, 
what is he but a fool? and " the companion of fools 
shall be destroyed." The day will come when he 



yO LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

will reproach the gay, godless crowd that gave him 
the cup, that taught him to swear, to frequent the 
saloon, the gambling den, the theatre, the house of 
the strange woman, and to surrender his Bible, his 
Sabbath habit and service, and last, but not least, the 
counsel and prayers and holy benedictions of a godly 
mother; but, too late, his curses will but aggravate 
his misery. 

It is a terrible cruelty in, some portions of the ani- 
mal kingdom that leads them to destroy their young; 
but what horror in the thought, that we may witness 
a far more barbarous cruelty among those who, by 
their godless enchantments, lure young men into the 
circle of their companionship and infamy. And 
would not he be an anomaly in human nature who^ 
out of choice, would mix with evil companions and 
not become like them ? Do you say — " They are not 
so bad, and from their evil ways I propose to stand 
aloof." Ah, and are you an angel from heaven, and 
not blasted by the common ruin ? Have you some 
special covenant with God or his angels, whereby you 
are to be granted this privilege, and to be shielded 
from harm ? Every pretext you offer is a contradic- 
tion in itself, and criminates you while you utter it. 
Who selects evil companions when he might have 
the witnesses of God and goodness for associates, 
loves the evil and prefers it. One of two things must, 
and always does, take place in such an alliance. 
Either you will bring the evil companions up to you, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. J I 

or you will go down to them. But have they not 
the majority and the preponderance of power in every 
particular, and can there be any doubt as to who will 
win? You will not bring them up; you have not 
sought them for any such purpose; you do not possess 
the endowment essential for such a work ; you are 
morally weak, while your companions are immorally 
strong, and they will carry you speedily down to 
their own base level. Nothing is more certain, and 
the frequency of the fact should alarm you, and lead 
you to shun godless companions as you would a 
crowd of bloody, shouting savages. . 

No faint words of mine can adequately describe 
this peril. These bands of evil men and women have 
haunts, just as wild beasts have dens. They are 
gilded or rude, it matters not, they are hiding places, 
lighted by the fires of hell, and the door, whether it 
swing on hinges of silver or iron, opens on the mouth 
of the pit. Here the cards shuffle, the godless gain of 
one and the aggravating loss of another clinks on 
the table, and is more than once the knell of the last 
hope in many a young man's breast ; here the wine 
giveth its color in the cup, and the fangs of the 
serpent vitiate blood and brain with the fatal poison; 
here the harlot " with an impudent face " says to her 
victim, " I have peace offerings with me. * * * 
He goeth after her straightway as an ox goeth to 
the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the 
stocks ; till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird 



J2 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for 
his life." 

To these haunts the young are lured, and then, 
when, by and by, we look sadly upon their wasted 
manhood, fallen and unsightly in " the chamber of 
death," their loss is attributed to this and that, and no 
little effort is made to pluck some virtue out of their 
blackening ashes, with which to wreathe a memory 
that is doomed to rot ; but it is fruitless, and the 
whole truth might be best put in this shameful epi- 
taph — Perished from association with evil companions. 

Hear the wise man who knew whereof he affirmed. 
" Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not 
in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, 
turn from it and pass away. For they sleep not ex- 
cept they have done mischief; and their sleep is 
taken away, unless they cause some to fall." " He that 
walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a com- 
panion of fools shall be destroyed." As you go 
through life, you will want, you will be the better of 
companionship. Seek it among the pure and good, 
for the company you keep will indicate what you are. 
Find those who outmeasure you in the moral stand- 
ard, and work up to the sublime level they provide 
for your imitation, and you will have equal recogni- 
tion from the good about you, and from God and his 
angels. 

As George Herbert has written, " Keep good com- 
pany and you shall be of the number." 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. J $ 

Respect the God who made you, the mother who 
bore you, the being you are, the destiny before you, 
and to all the enticements of evil men, say, " O my 
soul, come not thou into their secret ; unto their as- 
sembly, mine honor, be not thou united ;" and over 
your pathway the bright heavens will be parted, and 
this the benediction that will fall upon you : " Blessed 
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the un- 
godly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth 
in the seat of the scornful." 

But as I have intimated, it is not what goes into a 
man that defiles him, but what comes out of him. 
What he is gives a solemn moral function to his eyes, 
to his speech, to all the faculties of his being. I must 
yet warn you against the daring crime of Profanity. 

The sin of profane swearing enters so much into 
human character, fixes with such definiteness a man's 
moral relationship, and is so lamentably common that 
I cannot pass it by. It is a sad blow and a great hu- 
miliation to the dignity of human nature, that so many 
men who claim to be respectable, profane God's holy 
name, and not less distressing is it, that this crime 
takes on an air of dignity itself, and that there 
actually often comes a time to young men, especially 
if reared in the atmosphere of blasphemy, when they 
almost blush if they cannot spit out a little profanity. 
It gives them a false sense of manliness ; and they 
imagine that an oath, which cannot be uttered with- 
out sending a thrill of glee through hell, and of 



74 L-FE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

horror through heaven, gives emphasis to their words, 
and puts all controversy at an end. Some men be- 
come intemperate and dishonest after they have at- 
tained to the years of middle life, but is it not a 
serious fact, that profanity is a crime contracted in 
youth, and one to which young men are constantly 
exposed. That profane man and father was a swearer 
when he was a boy, and so much is it now a habit 
with him, that without his knowledge, almost every 
breath carries with it a blast of blasphemy. And 
where do we not find this brigade of the pit ? You 
find them on 'change, in the counting room, at the bar 
of justice, in the professor's chair, in the cars, street 
and rail, in the hotel, in the club room, in the hc^me, 
at the social party, in the halls of legislation, on the 
street. The father swears, and now the first blister is 
on the lip of his child ; the servant swears ; the truth 
is, a fiery stream of blasphemy runs through almost 
every relation and calling of life, and in many places 
the sound of it is more common than the roll of 
thunder in the summer. 

So largely are we a nation of swearers that the 
wonder is that God does not smite us with the fires 
of Sodom. Young men, I hope the contagion of 
this fearful crime has not yet reached you, but lest it 
has, hear me while I attempt to expose its wickedness. 

In any wise, sin is aimed at God, and is terrible; 
but especially is it shocking, when his own holy name 
is used as a medium by which to express it, and on 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 



/0 



which to give it exhibition. Whose is this name 
which men roll off the lips of blasphemy as though 
they were speaking of some low vagabond ? God ! 
God ! who made the heavens and the earth ; God ! 
who holds in his hands the life and death of every 
living creature ; God ! who cannot look upon sin 
with any degree of allowance ; how can we hear or 
repeat this name without a sense of awe ? The name 
of God ! Have you ever pondered its meaning ? Have 
you ever thought what it is that you mingle thus 
with your passion and your wit? It is the name of 
him whom " the heaven of heavens cannot contain." 
And yet how men take this name which angels fear 
and adore, and weave it with their ribald blasphemy. 
Should I utter with such contempt and contumely the 
name of your parents, child, or friend, you would 
resent it as a vulgar insult, and is it nothing that you 
hurl about in scoffs and jests and anger the name of 
him who keeps the pulses of your life going, and 
without whose benefaction you could not live a 
moment ? Ungrateful wretch ! You are guilty of no 
sin, that mounts to heaven with such a daring, and 
that is hurled back with such withering condemna- 
tion. The stars flash rebuke into the face of the 
swearer; every quivering leaf, every lurid shaft of 
lightning, every shock of thunder, all the voices of 
the tempest, the harping angels, and the very scoffing 
devils rebuke the profane man. As no other man, it 
seems to me, he tramps on the very pavement of 



j6 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

hell, and is in league with the devil. God cannot 
tolerate this crime, and our whole nature should be 
in revolt against it. Jehovah wrote its penalty on the 
tables of stone in the mount, and all through the 
Bible you may read how he has, and will rebuke it, 
by word and by penalty. Not more do strains of 
praise enter the ear of the Infinite, than does every 
oath that goes crashing through the spheres from the 
lips of men. Profanity has an eternal echo. And 
yet, louder than its violent daring shock, hear ! com- 
ing down the ages, and from amid the just decrees of 
the throne, the swearer's doom : " All blasphemers 
shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire 
and brimstone." 

I tremble for men who are addicted to this terrible 
habit, and no man can have any true conception of 
God, of his holiness and power, without coming into 
a conviction of its guilt and horror, that will cause 
him to shudder at the sound of an oath as if a terrible 
calamity were about to happen him. What a depth 
of degradation ! what capacity for crime the habit 
indicates ! and how, in all ages, the vilest of the race 
have been adepts in the vice ! And what wonder 
that God more than once has crushed the oath on the 
lip of the offender ! " In Scotland, a club was formed, 
in which, the members competed as to which could 
use the most horrid oaths. The man who succeeded 
best in the infamy, was made president of the club. 
His tongue began to swell. It protruded from his 



. LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. J J 

mouth. He could not draw it in. He died within 
three days." Physicians were baffled and knew not 
what was the matter. It was the swift penalty of a 
man who, not content to violate law, laid violent 
hands on the Law-maker, and perished in the attempt. 
" He cursed God and died." The history of the 
world affords many such examples, and they are well 
attested. It ought to be sufficient to turn all men 
from this habit, if there were but one such judgment 
in all the history of the race. 

The habit indicates the lowest breeding. A 
gentleman never swears. It detracts from, and 
never adds to, the grace of conversation. There 
is no symmetry in the narrative that is ingrained 
with profanity. His brain is weak, his ideas limited, 
and his speech unworthy the being God made, 
who cannot express himself without the help of 
oaths. Such a man, young or old, has no endow- 
ment for decent society, and no claim upon its privi- 
leges. If a man cannot give vent to his passion 
except in the use of such language, he had better 
smother it in its own flame. The vice is brutal 
throughout. No matter what kind of clothes a man 
wears, what culture he boasts, what refinement he 
prides in, what family connection he has, how much 
he may restrain himself in the parlor or drawing- 
room, where ladies are present, he who fears not to 
rush into the presence of the Infinite with profanity 
on his lips, is no gentleman. Besides, my young 



yS LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

friends, how utterly useless is this wicked habit. The 
poor inebriate gets some pleasure out of his delirium, 
and the gay votary of fashion and worldly amusement, 
like the silly butterfly that floats about the flame and 
then darts through it to death, has a momentary joy, 
but what pleasure, what profit is there in profanity ? 

" Take not his name, who made thy mouth, in vain ; 

It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse. 
Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain; 

But the cheap swearer, through his open sluice, 
Lets his soul run for naught." 

Young man, if you are addicted to this habit, there 
is a sad blot on your character. There is nothing in 
it, nor in anything else, so long as you can tolerate 
the habit and guilt of it, to indicate a bright future for 
you. The entire nature of a swearing youth is acces- 
sible to every form of temptation, and his character is 
only competent for evil. In the tenderest compassion 
for you, let me admonish any of you who may have 
fallen into this vice, to turn from it at once by a bitter 
repentance, before it permeates all your sense of 
\ right, and truth, and beauty, all your conceptions of 
God's character and presence, with its own daring 
spirit, which it will speedily and surely do ; and you 
who have but only ventured "toward the verge where 
stand the impious and scoffing profane," stop! as 
you would at the hot mouth of a crater, or on the 
crumbling edge of a precipice — stop, and reflect ! 
God is right there where you stand. He is there, not 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 79 

as a notion or thing, but as an awful Presence and 
Person. Look that way, repeat that name if you will, 
but do it reverently, lest the earth open and swallow 
you up, or else your destiny come into a darkness 
that will thicken forever. Ons day the quivering 
screen will be taken away, and you will stand face to 
face with God; if you have repeated His name in 
praise and prayer, oh ! how dazzling, like a sea of 
glass, will the vision be, how sweet the word, the 
Presence, as you join the acclaim to Him who is 
worthy; but if you have lived and died profane, how 
you will wartt the rocks and the mountains to fall on 
you and hide you from that face, while, as never 
before, you will hear and realize the meaning of the 
warning you knew but despised: "Thou shalt not 
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the 
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name 
in vain." 

But I must turn from evil to the resistance of it. 
And as the preponderance of evil is within us, and as 
we are in peril not so much from what we see with- 
out, as from what we are within, how imperative that 
a faithful sentinel be stationed at the door of tl^e soul. 
My young friends, you have great need to cultivate 
the power of self-control. What are external guards 
without this ? Farewell to the hopes of a young man 
when he flings the reins of passion loose on its neck. 
There are no wrecks so sad, so complete, as those 
which have been swallowed up in the seething whirl- 



80 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

pool of unbridled passion. Poor Burns had majesty 
of intellect, but what a pitiable slave withal ! How 
like a dirge over his own memory these his own 
words : 

"Reader, attend — whether thy soul 
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, 
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole 

In low pursuit ; 
Know prudent, cautious self-control, 

Is wisdom's root." 

But how able to write, and yet how utterly weak 
to honor his thoughts and faith in his life! What a 
sad illustration of his guilty bondage these lines, 
which he wrote as a prayer during a dangerous sick- 
ness : 

" Fain would I say, ' Forgive my foul offence,' 

Fain promise nevermore to disobey ; 
But should my Author health again dispense, 

Again I might desert fair virtue's way, 
Again in folly's path might go astray, 

Again exalt the brute and sink the man ; 
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, 

Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan — 

Who sin so oft have mourned, yet to temptation ran." 

What a humiliating confession of the sovereignty of 
sense, and of the slavery of soul, all this is. And 
what better is the testimony of that other gifted bard, 
Byron. Poor shattered victim of himself, he writes 
on his thirty-third birth-day : 

" Through life's dull road, so dim and dirty, 
I have dragged to three and thirty. 
What have these years left to me ? 
Nothing except thirty-three." 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 8 I 

So wrote one whom God gave health, beauty and 
genius. But he squandered his gifts, defaced his 
beauty, wasted his strength, and laid his master mind 
like incense on unhallowed altars. Worried and sad, 
he comes to his last birth-day, and gathering up the 
strings of his discordant harp, he sits down in the 
ashes of his hopes, and what a wail comes from the 
gloomy depths of his soul : 

" My days are in the yellow leaf, 

The flowers and fruits of love are gone, 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone." 

So wrote Byron at thirty-eight, and then died, a: 
glorious ruin immolated on the dripping altar of un- 
bridled passion. In common with many he could 
warn others, but had no control, no power of will, in 
his own behalf. His rational majesty, his manhood, 
lay discrowned at his feet, and to no one was the 
vision more real than to himself. Is a human being 
ever more pitiable, than when the passions of his 
nature triumph continually, and mock his feeble re- 
sistance ? Young men, if you will not endure God's 
touch, if you are giving license to every evil force 
within you, then your strength is gone, your soul is 
bartered for sin, and it is a calamity that you were 
born. " He that hath no rule over his own spirit is 
like a city that is broken down and without walls." 
When the sovereign power of the man himself is 
gone, how can he as much as offer resistance to ex- 



82 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

ternal foes ? He is the prey of every enemy, and 
there is no hope for him, unless by God's interposi- 
tion he can recover the noblest gift in his endowment 
— the sovereignty of his own will. He is the strong- 
est man who has the most self-control. Men judge 
wrongly here. The man who blusters his way 
through society, swinging the battle-axe of Richard 
Cceur de Lion, is counted strong, but he may be 
wavering as a straw in the tempest. The man who 
is an expert in the use of a deadly weapon may be 
weak as water, often is. Two men are thrust under 
the aggravation of a similar provocation ; the one 
man instantly resents the insult, and in stormy pas- 
sion asserts his dignity by smiting his opponent ; 
men look on and admire the fire of his character, 
they say, " he is a brave, strong man." The other 
man shows no signs of rage, holds himself in the 
severest self-control ; instead of resisting evil with 
evil, he answers not a word, and men who look only 
on the surface, call him weak and cowardly ; but Sol- 
omon says, " he is greater than he that taketh a city," 
and Jesus Christ says, " He has my image, and emu- 
lates my example, who when reviled, reviled not 
agfain, not because of weakness, but because of 
strength." If there be something that appeals to the 
passions of a man, no matter what, if he possesses 
integrity and a clean conscience, he shows his 
strength, his real sovereignty, not by yielding, but by 
restraining himself. If an angry man, or an evil lust, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 8$ 

attack you, you have the advantage when you yield 
to neither, and so may most successfully conquer both. 
He is a noble young man, whose higher nature, the 
part nearest to God, and not his lower nature, the 
part nearest the ground, always triumphs. " The 
strength of manhood is to be judged, not by the fury 
of occasional explosions, but by the depth and solidity 
of moral foundations. The smallest natures are most 
easily excited to self-defence. Impudence is infinitely 
quicker than dignity. True strength is calm ; incom- 
plete power is fussy." Jesus never was greater, never 
grander, than when in the silent majesty of self-con- 
trol he stood before Pilate. As a lamb led to the 
slaughter, he was the freeman, his foes the slaves. 
How noble you will be, how strong, if under all 
ignoble assault you copy that example. There is a 
noble witness among men to the power of this virtue 
and grace. 

Pythagoras called it " The strength and robust- 
ness of the soul ;" Socrates, " The foundation of all 
virtue;" Plato, "The order and fit array of all good 
things." Iamblichus said : " It is the safe-keeping of 
the soul's fairest conditions." Jeremy Taylor called 
it, " Reason's girdle, and passion's bridle." Islay 
Burns says it is " The helm of the ship ; it is the 
regulating wheel of the whole mechanism and move- 
ment of human life ; it is the calm charioteer, who, as 
he guides his fiery steeds along, never closes his eyes, 
nor lets slip the reins." Herbert Spencer says : ■" In 



84 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

the supremacy of self-control consists one of the per- 
fections of the ideal man. Not to be impulsive ; not 
to be spurred hither and thither by each desire that 
in turn comes uppermost; but to be self-restrained, 
self-balanced, governed by the joint decision of the 
feelings in council assembled, before every action 
shall have been fully debated and calmly determined, 
that it is which education, moral education at least, 
strives to produce." 

There are secret fires within you; watch them, 
bring them under prompt and complete discipline, or 
you will present the humiliating spectacle of a self- 
whipped man, without the least power to prevent your 
misery. God has not left you without a sovereignty 
by which, if you will, you may become the masters, 
not the slaves of yourselves. Enthrone your will in 
righteousness, and bring your whole nature under its 
wholesome and divinely-sanctioned decisions. Let 
the streams of your life flow, but in moderation, and 
in harmony with the great possibilities and purposes 
of your being; and .then you will be noble, and you 
will stand before evil like some bold rock of the sea, 
against which the waves dash, but break and roll 
back, themselves baffled in the effort. 

And this self-control will give you another endow- 
ment by which you may, and always should, resist 
evil : I mean your power of personal testimony, 
against it. A man is strong, when his character, his 
conscious self, can answer to the very terse and 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 8$ 

emphatic declaration of the Apostle — "Abhor that 
which is evil." The last years have been marked by 
a lack of this testimony against evil. It indicates 
moral weakness, the degeneracy of the public con- 
science, and an unusual supremacy of evil itself. 
There is strong demand for the witness of true man- 
hood, the testimony of the soul against evil, and the 
community is not secure without it ; and who neglects 
to cultivate and affirm it, will never be strong or 
proof to evil. 

Young friends, I would kindle all your nature, 
every faculty of mind and soul, against evil ; I would 
stir up a holy indignation in you, until, like the flam- 
ing cherubim before Eden, you would stand against it, 
striking in every direction ; but I would not have you 
abhor it, at the sacrifice in your feelings of a brother 
man, for that itself would be a great evil. Abhor, not 
men, but the evil of men. 

I would have you bring every faculty, every force 
of your nature, under such moral training as would 
throw your whole conscious, moral being as an irre- 
sistible weight against evil. Bring your reason, your 
imagination, your judgment and your will, your very 
senses, all on the side of right, and against wrong, 
and cultivate this moral consciousness until it shall 
become the strongest force of your nature. Remem- 
ber, it is not the form, not the place, not the time, 
that charges evil with peril, but it is the evil of evil ; 
abhor it because it is evil As you would shun a 



86 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

venomous serpent, as you would avoid a loathsome 
disease, as you would flee a horrid stench, as you 
would resent a shocking cruelty, so let all your 
nature burn against wrong. And be careful to resist 
evil in its more diminutive forms. Many a man 
will stop to kill a snake, when he is quite indif- 
ferent about the vermin in the house, or the insects 
in the garden ; let alone, the lesser may do far more 
harm than the greater. So, there is a disposition to 
abhor great evils, and to be wholly indifferent to 
lesser and more common sins. The mistake is as 
fatal as it is foolish. It looks like encouraging and 
scattering the infection, that we may better show our 
bravery and skill in fighting the disease afterwards. 
Not so do I counsel you. Abhor the very least evil. 
Let your moral sense be such that it shall become a 
necessity, a law of your being, to shun and witness 
against the very appearance of evil. And see to it, 
that you fortify yourself most where you are most 
likely to be overcome. We are in danger of a strong 
liking or disposition to some particular sin. Every 
man has his weak point. There he will be oftenest 
tried and easiest overcome. Look out for the beset- 
ting sin. Discover its power, its moral turpitude, and 
how it holds a keen-edged sword over you which 
may smite you at any moment. Of all others, learn 
to hate that particular pet evil most, until, the master 
of it, you may assert that grandest of all liberty — soul 
liberty. Strengthen the point assailed, and maintain 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 5/ 

a vigorous growth there, and successful resistance 
will be secured; and foiled again and again, the tempter 
will flee from you. It has been truly said, that no 
man is stronger than his weakest point ; therefore 
make yourself strong just there. And dream not of 
anything like an approach to real character without 
this sense of abhorrence of evil. The man who can 
look at, tolerate, and disseminate evil, without any 
sense of abhorrence, does not possess the first element 
of manhood, to say nothing of Christian graces. His 
is a low nature, whatever his pretensions or station, 
who can look unconcerned at wickedness. 

Have you any abhorrence of evil? Then, as you 
prize your life and immortality, I charge you, cultivate 
and encourage it. Alas ! for the young man, when 
he allows his moral sense against evil to die out. 
And if you do not give your abhorrence of evil 
expression, it will as certainly die for the want of it as 
will the plant for the want of water in a time of 
drought. The man who, because of association with 
evil, or on account of a selfish or mock prudence, 
does not give expression to his indignation against 
wrong, has shattered the nerve and muscle of his 
manhood, and is pitiably weak. A man is not worthy 
the name of man who has -no power of indignation. 
A man is not worthy of being ranked in the roll of 
manhood who does not know how to issue soul- 
thunder, and contributes nothing to that moral light- 
ning in the community under which wrong must hide 



88 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

or perish. By the maintenance of an unswerving 
principle of right, by the cultivation of the highest 
self-respect and moral tone, by right views of man- 
hood and exalted character, by love for God and 
correct apprehension of life in all its scope of promise 
and immortality, by all the wonderful possibilities 
with which God has endowed you, I urge upon you 
the abhorrence of that which is evil, otherwise it will 
smite you as though it were lightning from heaven. 

Man is never weaker than when he finds it possible 
to defend wrong, which is always indefensible, without 
revulsion. No man can vindicate wrong by reason. 
Every man who has a bad case to defend must in the 
first place blink his own common sense, insult his 
own sagacity, and quash his own sense of right, before 
he can defend himself or defend the evil action of 
another. No man can make out a good case for 
wrong. He must evade many lines of obligation ; he 
must trifle with the plain and spiritual sense of many 
terms ; he must hurry over many very difficult parts 
of his case ; he must depose his conscience ; he must 
hoodwink his sagacity ; and then, perhaps, he may do 
something confusedly and wickedly in defense of some 
questionable action of his or of another's life. God 
never meant that wrong should be covered up, and 
any effort to weaken the abhorrence of evil in the 
community is a bribery of the public conscience, and 
this is a crime — and a crime that no man can perpe- 
trate without himself being the greatest sufferer. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 89 

When a man lends himself, in his opinion, in his 
example, sympathy, or influence, to evil, he is barter- 
ing his manhood, his self-respect, his moral power, 
and receiving no equivalent; and instead of resisting 
evil, evil is overcoming and destroying him. 

To this manly testimony against evil I summon 
you, young men, as not only something that becomes 
you, but as affording you a power that will make you 
successful in resisting wrong. But remember, that to 
produce in yourself such a testimony, you will need 
God's grace. It is in this way God works in men to 
will and to do of his good pleasure. 

Gather up your wasted energies, the desolation 
of your moral being, if desolation there be ; come 
back to God, your Father, and to his Son, your 
Saviour; be recovered by a Divine regeneration to 
that exalted moral consciousness which will lead you 
to abhor that which is evil and cling to that which is 
good, and in saving yourselves you will save others 
also. Many men have gone too far to be influenced 
by these thoughts. Their moral sense has become 
blunted. What would shock their wives, their 
mothers and sisters, seem to- them but innocent en- 
joyments of legitimate privileges. They are the 
scourge of the community, a moral pestilence among 
men. When a fearful disease sets in, it is apt to 
sweep off the old veterans in dissipation and crime. 
And in a time of moral degeneracy like this, men 
whose moral sense has wasted long; in evil-doing - , are 



90 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

hopeless ; they will not be reclaimed; they must go 
down in the flood, and a black margin must be put 
about their memory. 

But I would fain hope that even among the way- 
ward of your class there is still some sense of right 
and purity and truth. Sweep from these the dust and 
blight of evil by turning and cleaving to that which 
is good, and allow these better angels of your nature 
to go unbound, and to find exercise in their own ex- 
alted sphere, and the moral health of the community 
will increase, and the God-like faculties and great 
possibilities with which you have been endowed will 
find a scope only worthy of them. You will be true 
men, safe men, well-rounded men, men of power in 
the community, men of noble and immortal destiny, 
when you come to stand up so high and strong in 
moral consciousness, as that your whole nature will 
quiver with indignation at wrong as an aspen leaf 
does to the touch. 

To this grand development God calls every one of 
you. But you cannot attain to it by any wisdom or 
method solely of your own. To this excellence, this 
truest glory of manhood, Christ is the way ; to him 
I point you. The man who looks on his face, and to 
whom God unveils the cross in all its significance of 
mystery, agony and blood, must have a disposition 
toward .evil, that will furnish him an omnipotent 
shield against it. At that cross linger always ; or if 
you have not, there at once bow a penitent suppliant, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 9 1 

and in its power and pardon realize how Infinite 
Holiness regards evil; and as the image of your Lord 
comes into bolder view, your power of resistance 
will increase, until without fault you stand before the 
throne. 

" Up for thy life, young soul, 

Foes gather round thee fast 
Up, for the swift hours roll 

Thy favored season past. 
Now thou art strong, gird for the fight; 
Decay e're long shall waste thy might. 

" Mark how, from realms above, 
The Spirit o'er thee bends ; 
Gift of the Saviour's love, 
Him God the Father sends : 
He leads secure; his sword and shield, 
Make victory sure — make Satan yield. 

" God and his saints invite, 

Hell warns with dreadful voice ; 
Life, death, all things unite 
To press thy timely choice. 
List to that call. On Jesus' side, 
Trust now thine all ; in him abide." 



T 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PERIL OF MAKING HASTE TO BE RICH 

HE Bible nowhere discourages the legitimate 
acquisition of wealth. I do not come to utter 
any tirade against that frugality, industry, skill, and 
integrity, which are rewarded by the accumulation of 
money and property. I love to see it. I urge upon 
you to make all you can, and to save all you can, for 
highest and noblest uses, in a legitimate way, in a 
way that will promote, and not crush out your man- 
hood. I believe it is God's ordination that some men 
are to be rich, and I am glad of it. Few men can be 
more useful than a man of wealth, if he be so minded. 
The community, the world, owes much to noble- 
minded, rich men ; but either can scarce have a 
greater curse than men of large means, who are not 
men, but misers, and wasters, and tyrants. I have a 
great liking for thrift and success in commerce ; I 
love to see men driving a good trade. It is good for 
society ; there is an excellent discipline in it, if a man 
will allow it to build on the nobler side of his nature. 
I would not check in any man the right pursuit of 
wealth. But I would have all remember whence it 
comes, and what forces and issues it involves. It is 
a fine thing to be rich, provided a man can preserve 

(92) 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 93 

his sovereignty, and understands how to adjust him- 
self to it, so as to turn it into a blessing, and will 
grow all the while in a capacity that enables him to 
answer the great responsibility of such possession. I 
know of nothing material that has a higher use in 
God's mind, and should have in ours, than wealth. 
It may be the production of the noblest elements in 
our humanity ; it is not a shadow, but a reality ; it is 
an instrument of untold good : what capacity for 
refinement, for civilization, for education, for material 
thrift, there is in it ; how much it may be made to 
contribute to morality, to virtue, to domesticity, and 
to religion itself: the church herself in all her vast 
and benevolent organism must come to, and is in no 
small part dependent upon the sources of wealth — to 
God belongs the silver and the gold, and I do not 
condemn a treasure into which he has put so much 
of benediction, nor do I warn you against a purpose 
and desire to become rich, when the motive is pure, 
and far greater in your eyes than the gold that glitters. 
As an end, wanting to be rich is a fatal delusion ; as 
a means to a higher end, it is right and proper. But 
the acquisition of wealth is peculiar, and it is only the 
very strong man who can engage in it without peril. 
It is against the perils I would seek to warn you. 
Making haste to be rich is not something for which. 
the law will apprehend and punish a man, though I 
think it would often prove a great mercy if the law 
did arrest and execute penalty on men for the greed 



94 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

of gain ; I am sure such restraint would rescue many 
a man and many a home from a series of calamities 
which otherwise are inevitable. The evil of money- 
seeking is not in the money sought, but in the man 
seeking it ; and as such it is one of the greatest perils 
of the time. The prevalent greed for riches must be 
regarded as one of the most prominent foes of the 
young in the field to-day. It has vanquished thou- 
sands, and they have gone into gloomy memory, and 
it goes on, prouder and stronger from past successes. 
And all the more have we reason to fear it " because 
it comes backed by the philosophy of the whole cen- 
tury." The age is intensely material. Money repre- 
sents more than ever it did ; and this would not be so 
bad, if the money was not so largely the master 
instead of the servant of what it represents. " Thus," 
remarks Prof. Swing, in point, " before millions of the 
young shines a star unworthy to guide the spirit, a 
yellow star lurid as Mars, sickly as the Dog-star in 
August. * * * If only a few men in a generation 
were struggling for gold, the world could bear the 
strain ; but when the public philosophy is material, 
and all the sweet infants are born into the passion for 
money as they are born into liberty and language, the 
outlook seems draped with clouds." 
, When the history of the nineteenth century is 
written, it will be put down as a chief characteristic, 
that it was a money-loving age, an era when fortunes 
were suddenly made and suddenly lost ; and I shall 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 95 

wonder if. there be not a very long chapter, with a 
black margin round it, and on one side the picture of 
a palatial residence, with gay turn-out waiting at the 
door, and on the other side the same residence, with 
auctioneer on the steps, disposing of the rose-wood, 
and axminster, and plate, to the highest bidder ; and 
then will follow in clear type a history of ways that 
are dark, and tricks that are vain," in the business 
world. 

There will be something said about " rings," and 
gambling schemes, and " options," and " corners," 
and " watering stocks," and the like. And what a 
chapter there will be on investigations. This and 
that government official, and this and that institution, 
and this and that clerk or cashier, or guardian of 
some widow's orphan children, had to be investigated ; 
and when the most was done to clear up the scandal, 
the blot would appear on the reputation,-while the 
victim of that master passion — the love of money — 
descends to a memory as black as it is immortal. 

Now when there is such an intense fever for gain- 
getting as marks this time, and when so many ways 
that are iniquitous are employed to gain this end, it 
is not strange that young men should be influenced 
and imperiled by a sorcery so bewitching. 

I am sure that it is not in the memory of the old- 
est man, that there was such a time of wild and mon- 
strous scheming to secure wealth, and such an era 
of godless, reckless extravagance, as has distinguished 



Cp LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

the present century. And just now, in the. incoming 
tide of a prosperity which should stir all that is noble 
in man, there is occasion for caution, lest this unholy, 
wasting greed receive a new impulse. Only the other 
day, a seat at the New York Stock Exchange sold 
for $15,000, a rate of $2,500 higher than any pre- 
viously obtained. This rash hurry for riches, and 
these unscrupluous methods of obtaining wealth, are 
the great peril of our returning prosperity. And all 
the greater is the danger because the present genera- 
tion has not been trained to calm and steady industry, 
and patience, and contentment with a moderate com- 
petence. It is a sad thing that so grand a power, so 
noble a talent, as money, should be prostituted to 
such base uses, and that the desire to possess it 
should drop into an avaricious lust, and occasion such 
a waste of manhood and of noble destiny. If I could 
help one young man to a fortune by means upright 
and manly/ I should be glad ; but I shall be happier 
still, if, in your ambition for worldly enterprise, I can 
succeed in .setting your faces like flint against every 
evil that imperils the soul and skirts the path of the 
money-maker. 

Beware, my young friends, of the power of decep- 
tion there is in riches. 

The Lord Jesus Christ comprehended human na- 
ture and knew its susceptibility to temptation as no 
other, and what keen manifestation of it he gave 
often in his utterances. With what force he shows 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. g'/ 

the power of avarice to delude, to blunt the moral 
sensibilities, and to render useless the best means of 
moral development. The " care of this world, the 
deceitfulness of riches, choke the word," and destroy 
all true life in the human soul. What a ring of warn- 
ing, and what a scope of meaning, in that short sen- 
tence — " the deceitfulness of riches," and how abund- 
ant the personal testimony to its truth. 

What a commentary many a commercial 'and stock 
exchange, and many an imposing mansion, and many a 
dilapidated home, and many a bent, prematurely gray- 
headed man, are on these words — "The deceitfulness. 
of riches." Oh, what enchantment there is in gold,, 
and what have men not done, and what will they not 
do to secure it ? I do not say that you shall not seek 
wealth, but I do say that if you give yourself up to it 
as an end of life, you will be deceived and destroyed. 
If you make haste to be rich, if you are bent on a 
fortune, no matter how, only so that it come soon, 
then, if you start with any conscience, with any high 
moral or religious conviction, prepare for a flood of 
temptation, and for your own overthrow. In such a 
case, it is not the man that wins, but it is his idol — 
gold ! And in any event, in the pursuit of riches, no 
matter how firm and honest your purpose, or how 
manly your endeavor, prepare for assault upon your 
rectitude, upon your truthfulness ; and remember that 
when the reward of your bribery is gold, it is only 
the man who is vigorously grown in his moral nature, 
7 



98 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

and whose head towers very high into the excellen- 
cies that glitter more and endure longer than gold, 
that triumphs ; all others yield and are strangled in 
the dust that beclouds the way of the chariot of 
mammon. " All is not gold that glitters ;" but gold 
does glitter, and there are few who seekit with purpose 
that can withstand its treacherous deception. It is 
possible for a man to go up to the top in worldly suc- 
cess, and yet maintain his supremacy of soul : still, 
that would be a perilous venture for a young man, 
unless he take with him for a companion some angel 
of heaven to shield him. The Master has given 
warning against the inordinate love and restless ac- 
quisition of wealth, as a source of the most subtle 
and mighty temptations that can assail the soul. 
" How hardly shall they that have riches enter into 
the kingdom of heaven." The possession of great 
wealth, and the pursuit of it, expose to the same 
danger. Give up to the passion, let the love of 
money pervade the soul, and your path shall lead 
along the brittle edge of an abyss, in which there are 
depths that have never been measured, and have 
swallowed up many who might have been noble on 
earth and glorious in heaven. It is a grand thing, a 
really great thing, to have abundance of wealth, and 
to be able to say, from deepest experience, " Man doth 
not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
ceeded out of the mouth of God." To wrest real 
success, a noble triumph, out of the pursuit of riches, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 99 

is a great thing ; but not one in a thousand accom- 
plishes the achievement. The determined resolution 
of men to be rich at all risks and cost, is to be con- 
demned, and it is pitiable to see men furnish in them- 
selves the victims for the satisfaction of this deceiving 
god ; let a man succeed in such a purpose, and he 
has wasted in the quality of his soul ; his success is 
failure ; his victory is defeat ; his prize is ruin. 

Riches are deceitful in their power of absorption. 
God never made man to sacrifice himself to a thing 
so perishable as money, any more than he made the 
Hebrews to prostrate themselves before a golden calf. 
And yet the absorbing power of money-getting is an 
experience with which all are indirectly or otherwise 
familiar. Men give up to this unmanly greed, not 
because it may answer the higher nature, but because 
it will glut the lower ; men give to the securing of 
wealth every faculty, every force of their being ; all 
time, all relationship, all higher obligations ; they re- 
serve nothing, sometimes not even the proper treat- 
ment and affection for their families, and then per- 
suade themselves that they are worthily employed. 

A man may become so absorbed in money-making, 
may be so identified in his conscious being with his 
idol, that all his faculties will not simply be so obtuse 
as to make it impossible for him to apprehend any- 
thing higher ; but his moral being will be so carried 
down to the low level of the aim for which he lives, 
that no appeal, whether from the Gospel, or from the 



IOO LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

grave, can have any influence upon him. He is a 
conquered slave, and is content that the fetters that 
bind him wear so bright -a sheen, as well as furnish 
the highest desire of his shriveled soul. He knows 
no sovereign but money, he has no God but mam- 
mon, and with a piece of coin he hides from his 
narrow vision all that is noble here, and all that is 
beautiful and imperishable hereafter. What a miser- 
able pauper such a man is. 

He perverts the divine order, and it is not within 
the scope of his capacity to say — " A man's life con- 
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
possesseth." With his abundance he says, " I have 
need of nothing," and knows not that he is poor. 
The great beautiful world, with its flowers and birds, 
its mountains and seas, and with its over-hanging 
canopy of stars, is all about him, but he owns none 
of it. So of the more conscious world of friends, and 
home, and social joy, and noble thinking, and delight- 
ful ministry — he has none of this. Still less is he a 
recipient of those higher blessings and privileges 
which come from God through grace, and bring with 
them the glow of music and heaven. Has he a palace 
for a home ? how much better is the beggar at his 
gate if he have spiritual wealth. 

This money-loving man has no power of appropri- 
ation in the higher spheres, and all else, save the poor 
object for which he lives, seems contemptible and 
unworthy of him. " If," says one, " you are tempted 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. IOI 

by the love of money, and if through your weakness 
or negligence it becomes supreme in you, your whole 
life is tinged by the jaundice you have allowed to in- 
fect the heart. God's quality is in the world around 
you ; but your quality is diffused through all you see 
and experience. Only the heart that is sympathetic 
and merciful, only the heart that holds money subor- 
dinate to generous uses and service, can know what 
the gracious stars, and the munificent sun, and the 
liberal sea, and the bounteous earth, whisper to us 
from the Spirit of God — can know what is the glory 
of history, what the worth of human nature, what 
'the unsearchable riches of Christ.' " When a man 
turns his whole conscious being into a money-till, 
and cultivates and uses all his powers in the interest 
of that aim, he knows no other universe, and is out 
of harmony with the world in which he lives, with 
the God who lets him live, and with all the noble 
purpose for which he was made. 

I do not say that such a man will not succeed. 
One who lives to be rich, who toils for it in the day, 
and dreams about it at night, who brings to his effort 
noble gifts, who gives his brains, and education, 
and experience, and friends, and all things, and much 
that is evil, all up to that end, is it strange he should 
succeed ? Not at all. Triumph over a world of 
mud, gathering up a handful of dust, should not be 
so great a difficulty to any man as to baffle him, when 
he sets out with resolution and skill to achieve it 



102 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

But what has he when he has succeeded ? Ten, 
twenty, thirty years are gone. He is rich. But look 
at his soul ! He has wealth ; but as a man gives his 
sweat to his toil, so he has given himself to his 
treasure, and for all that is highest and noblest here 
and in eternity, he has nothing. What has he for his 
barren universe but a golden calf, hollow and pulse- 
less ; and to fashion it, it has not only cost him his 
lifetime, but the grand possibilities of life, it has cost 
— himself. Yes, he has money, but far more the 
money has him. While his treasure was accumulat- 
ing he was wasting, and now, what is there left of 
him ? He is afraid of everything and of everybody ; 
and now, when eternity is not far off, he cannot take 
his gold with him, and he has no mind any more — 
no manhood, no hope. Pitiable object ! Let him 
die ! Give him a princely funeral, and rear the white 
shaft over his dust ; it will long outlive his memory. 
There is no poverty like that which afflicts a rich 
man who has given his life, his soul, his destiny, to 
the acquisition of riches. 

Young men, Tdo not say that you can be success- 
ful in business by folding your hands, and sleeping 
away your time. No ; your industry, your energy, 
your skill, will be required. But beware of the de- 
ceitfulness of riches. Remember that you are worth 
more than gold, that there is something far better, and 
far safer, than t*o be rich, and that God never meant 
that a man should give his body, and mind, and soul, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. IO3 

and manhood, and the tenderest relationships, and 
the sublimest destiny, all up for money. 

Beware of the lust of gain, for no tyrant on earth 
ever swung a lash with such success and cruelty, as 
does this monster over its deluded victims. 

If men wish, they can sacrifice time, and strength, 
and every tender and sacred obligation, even God and 
heaven, for money ; it has been done thousands of 
times, but never without paying a price, the value of 
which all the gold of earth could not compensate. If 
money and property reward your honest endeavors, 
take them as a trust ; dictate to them, not they to 
you ; use them to help you to a better and more en- 
during fortune, and as one that must give account. 

The peril of hasting to be rich is manifest further 
in the manner in which it beguiles men from their 
purpose in the beginning. Young men are not un- 
warned of the evils attending an insane passion for 
money, and they plunge into the race in which far 
more run than win, with a determination to be mod- 
erate in their efforts, and with a promise that when 
they have reached a certain point they will be con- 
tent, and stop. 

They little know at the beginning how swift the 
stream is on which they have set sail; and they learn, 
often too late, that they can no more stop, than can 
the ill-fated rower who stealthily has glided too near 
the falls, and must go over. When fifty or a hun- 
dred thousand dollars have been secured, then they 



104 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

will tighten the reins on the smoking steeds they 
have been driving with such desperation, and expend 
with munificence their gains on every worthy object. 
No promises are so empty, and the path of human 
life in all the years is strewn with these broken vows. 
Such promises are on the lip of every man who 
makes a wrong start. The tippler does not mean to 
become a drunkard, and the man who begins to spec- 
ulate in stocks or otherwise to secure a competence, 
without a fixed and lofty aim in life, only means to go 
so far, and then stay. No man who would live and 
give himself away for money only for a time has any 
right to flatter himself with such a promise ; it is 
without foundation, and that he comes to act precisely 
contrary to his promise, is but the working out of a 
law that never fails. Who starts down such a decliv- 
ity, with such shallow moral equipment, is never 
arrested save by some Divine interposition which 
achieves his rescue, or suddenly ends his career. 
Hell and the grave are never full, and he who lives 
for gold is never satisfied, and the less satisfied the 
longer he lives. " He that loveth silver will not be 
satisfied with silver." If you go after wealth for its 
own sake, or for that over which the great champions 
of riches have written, " Vanity, all is vanity," you 
may win, but with the prize you will have strength- 
ened an appetite that will mock all human effort to 
put it down, and will ring its lash over you as does a 
tyrant over his slave, until the grave shuts off all 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 105 

opportunity of gratification, and eternity will quicken 
it into a worm that will not die, and a fire that will 
not be quenched. 

Mammon! It is a god that hath a demon's heart 
and a demon's purpose ; a god never satisfied, never 
grateful, never beneficent ; unkindest of all to his vic- 
tim, he immolates all who bow at his gilded shrine. 
Young men, let me warn you against this flattering 
and mocking money-god ; he will delude and disap- 
point you in the end ; he will thrill you with exciting 
promises that will flash a very flood of charms before 
your vision, until caught up in the glory you will be 
bound to his beck ; he will show you the kingdoms 
of the world and all their glory — he will fling open 
the brilliant gates of enchanting palaces, and give you 
visions of temples in which all is golden — and then, 
when lost in the mocking dazzle, he will laugh you 
to scorn, and you will despise your own weakness ! 
Yes ; he will discover himself to you, and as you 
writhe in your remorse, he will grin on you as devils 
only can ; and when you behold him unmasked, 
lying, horrid, ghastly, you will be like him. 

But see the peril of making haste to be rich, not 
only in its power to deceive, and to absorb, but as 
well in its power to ruin every element of a noble 
manhood. When the love of money becomes a pas- 
sion — a lust — it is like the tide sweeping up over the 
beach ; it over-floods the man, and like useless weeds 
that come to the surface, it brings out and gives 



106 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

vigor to every evil disposition, until the man who 
surrenders himself to the base enchantment of money- 
getting becomes a monster. I am now speaking of 
moral qualities, for such a man may not be a criminal 
in the eyes of the law ; he may even be a fair citizen, 
and an indulgent father, and he will be both of these 
and much more, if they can be made to contribute to 
his greed for gain. Such a man will have little re- 
gard for moral law and responsibility — it is money he 
is after, and if the Bible comes in his way, he will 
tramp that down ; if the Lord's day confronts him, 
he will tramp that down ; and if the Church in any- 
wise resists him, he will override that : his desire for 
gold predominates, and justifies him in his tyranny 
over God and man. 

This love of money, which is the root of all evil, 
makes human nature supremely selfish and offensively 
proud. The poor inebriate may have an affectionate 
heart, and be humble as a slave; but when a man de- 
votes himself to money-getting for its own sake, he 
comes between forces that crush these nobler quali- 
ties out of him. No matter, my young friends, how 
you seek wealth — you may do it by means perfectly 
right and just — still you must beware of the disposi- 
tion to selfishness and pride, for these are the legiti- 
mate offspring of deceitful riches. 

It may not be difficult for you to name men who 
were once as poor as you are, but who by some 
means have acquired a fortune, and now you notice 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 10/ 

quite a change in them. They were once your asso- 
ciates, you went to school together, you grew up to- 
gether. They borrowed from you, and you loaned 
to them. But now, how changed : they ride and you 
walk; there is a long way between you socially; their 
memories have failed them so, and their eyesight has 
become so dim, that they do not recognize you any 
more, but they know the nabob that wheels along in 
splendor. You do not call on these any more, and 
your wives, though school-girls together — why, it 
would be a terrible breach of social etiquette to have 
them associate. 

Now, there is a vein of selfishness and of weak, 
offensive vanity in all that, that a noble nature scorns. 

You see what money has made of your friend. 
The man is to be pitied, who has money, and goes 
strutting about as if men owed any special respect to 
him on that account. When the sympathetic bond 
between men is sundered by wealth, so that the rich 
man is self-elevated, and looks down on the poor and 
the working man, and has no social contact with 
either, you have a living illustration of the " deceitful- 
ness of riches." That man is weak and mean, and 
the angels of God have nothing to do with him. 
" The poorest man in the world is the man who 
touches his fellow-men in the fewest points. The 
richest man in the world is the man who has the 
most warm and glowing sympathies, which connect 
him with all classes and conditions in human life." 



108 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

How humiliating often the selfishness of money- 
loving and money-grasping people ! What a blush 
such throw on the face of human nature! Let a man 
have that pride and selfishness which nothing but 
money will satisfy, and it will quench out the affec- 
tions he owes his father and mother, and he will 
want the venerable man to die, that he may undo 
the strings about the will, and see how he comes 
out. 

No sooner is the funeral over than he returns with 
a pious air on his face, and, in mockery, speaks of the 
kindness and virtues of the old man ; but now, he is 
not content with this mockery more, andv suggests 
that the will had better be read. He reminds me of 
a lot of vultures hovering over a dying stag, ready to 
" pounce upon it when the last breath is gone. Oh ! 
mean love of gold ! what cares it for mother or father 
when it has once reared its throne in the human 
heart ? 

It is no fancy-sketch which the poet has drawn of 
gold and its worshipers, who 

" On its altar sacrificed ease, peace, 
Truth, faith, integrity, good conscience, friends, 
Love, charity, benevolence, and all 
The sweet and tender sympathies of life ; 
And, to complete the horrid, murderous rite, 
And signalize their folly, offered up 
Their souls and an eternity of bliss, 
To gain them — what? An hour of dreaming joy, 
A feverish hour, that hasted to be done 
And ended in the bitterness of woe.'' 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. IO9 

The peril of this common evil appears again in the 
prolific source of crime it furnishes. When a man is 
so enslaved, and so exhausted in his moral forces, 
what is he not ready for ! Is it remarkable that such 
a wasting of his better nature should give him large 
development for the accomplishment of evil, especially 
when evil may contribute to that which has come to 
be, not only his life, but the restless, covetous soul of 
his life ? Not at all. It is the outworking of inevita- 
ble law as before. " He that maketh haste to be rich 
shall not be innocent." " They that will be rich fall 
into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish 
and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction 
and perdition. For the love of money is the root of 
all evil." The greed of gain confers upon its victim 
large endowment for crime. As a rule, a man who 
seeks wealth as he ought, will not only grow into it 
by careful and honest methods, but he will grow with 
it. While he is building up his fortune, he will not fail 
to enlarge himself, and he will count the riches which 
he represents in himself as far above that which per- 
isheth in the using. But men that make haste to be 
rich are not content to hasten slowly ; they drive like 
Jehu, and they have no scruples to adopt any means 
that will accelerate the speed, and hurry the end 
desired. Great criminals who get rich, are apt to get 
rich very suddenly. It only required a few years to 
furnish a Fisk and a Tweed, and as they amassed 
wealth into what criminal vigor they grew. Men who 



IIO LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

have stood high, not only in the community, but in 
the church, have yielded to the accursed sorcery of 
riches, and have fallen like Lucifer from heaven. It 
was not their position, not any association with 
religion, that cast them down, but it was the lust of 
gain, and sadly and forcibly illustrates the tendency 
of the base passion to dishonesty and every other 
crime. Money-getting, when it comes to be a vicious 
greed, is certain to put a man into such positions, and 
amid such surroundings as nothing but the most 
determined fixedness of moral principle, with the 
additional help of God's grace, can overcome. Some 
great speculation, full of promise, but not by any 
means morally straight, presents itself, " there are 
millions in it ;" the opportunity is rare, and if it be 
allowed to pass it may never occur again, and now 
begins the battle between an enfeebled sense of right 
and an independent fortune. There is a snare, the 
man perchance hesitates, but the tempter within and 
the tempter without join to remind him of the good 
he might do with such an acquisition. He could estab- 
lish a home for all his children, and besides, he might 
do much for the best of causes — the church, the mis- 
sionary society, the orphan asylum, the cause of 
education, and so on — and then, there is some force 
in the fact, that if he does not avail himself of this 
opportunity, some one else will, and why not he ? So 
the delusion entices its victim to its chains, and the 
" hurtful lust " is yielded to, and he is "drowned in 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I I I 

destruction and perdition." Then there comes in 
men's lives who have and want more money, that 
trying hour of retrenchment, or the maintenance of 
their present state by fraudulent means. The black 
wing of adversity has struck them, and shattered the 
golden god on its pedestal. The man is bankrupt, 
but he keeps it from his creditors ; he thinks of wife 
and daughters rocked in the lap of luxury, and paying 
homage at the shrine' of fashion. If he were to 
retrench, he would do a manly, honest thing, and 
might bridge over the yawning gulf before him ; but 
will he ? Will he surrender and preserve his man- 
hood and his creditors, or will he refuse and preserve 
his state, his family pride and extravagance ? We 
know how it has often gone with such. Once in a 
while the disaster is met in a frank, manly way, but 
it is not unusual for such to resort to fraud for relief, 
or they flee the country, or rush into the outer dark- 
ness of self-destruction. 

What monstrous crimes this fever for riches has 
wrought ! How many have grown rapidly into 
unjust wealth, and what hardness of face, and utter 
deadness of moral sense, they have come into ! Oh ! 
how cruel avarice consumes all the wealth of a man's 
nature, and leaves only the ashes to mingle with the 
dust of his wasted life, and w r asting flesh by and by. 
It is a terrible witness against a man, an ever-repeat- 
ing charge against his memory, a reproachful legacy 
for his children, that better people than he, behold in 



112 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

his material treasure and pomp that which is not by 
any just right his; it has been wrung from the poor, 
gathered in the stock swindle, or otherwise secured 
by overreaching and trickery. There are hundreds 
of men who have come into large wealth, and whose 
palatial homes are scenes of costly elegance, who, if 
they had their just deserts, would be clad in the 
criminal's attire, and look out from the dingy cell of 
a prison ; there is great display, large self-conceit, but 
no glory of rectitude, and no cleanness before God, 
while in the flash of plate and rose-wood, and gilding, 
and amid the folds of tapestry, and plush, and velvet, 
and gorgeous drapery of lace and gold, and splendor 
of statuary and painting, there is a horrid mingling of 
human toil, and sweat, and happiness, and sometimes 
blood. And what could have put such bold effrontery 
into the wickedness of these but that love of money 
which is the root of all evil. Ah ! well, God sees all 
this abuse of a noble gift, and over all that lying mag- 
nificence his curse settles as the lightning of judgment 
shot through the palace of Belshazzar ; one day he 
will tear away this mocking tinsel, and write his truth 
and doom on these shiny walls. From amid the 
cloud and mystery of that day a shrill voice comes : 
" Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your 
miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are 
corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your 
gold and silver are cankered, and the rust of them 
shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I 13 

flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure 
together for the last days. Behold the hire of the 
laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is 
of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of 
# them which have reaped have entered into the ears 
of the Lord of Sabaoth." What a doom awaits the 
rich criminal ! 

But from those who have been shrewd to acquire 
wealth, and as shrewd to evade the law, turn to the 
large number who have failed of this success. How 
many crimes have the guilt of gold on them ! The 
gambler, the forger, the thief, the swindler, the mur- 
derer, all have been w r hipped to their crimes and 
their penalty by love of money. And what sources 
of evil traffic it sustains ! Band all the godless into 
one blasphemous group, and nothing external will 
control them like money. 

" Gold ! gold ! gold ! gold ! 
Bright and yellow, hard and cold, 
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold, 
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled, 
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old 
To the very verge of the churchyard mould. 
Price of many a crime untold, 
Good or bad, a thousandfold, 
How widely its agencies vary — 
To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless — 
As even its minted coins express : 
Now stamped with the image of good Queen Bess, 
And now of a bloody Mary." 

I know not, my young friends, whether there is an 
evil that is more insidious, and one to which you are 



114 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

likely to be more exposed, than this. Mingling in 
your daily avocations with the busy, grasping throng, 
all excited with the spirit and chances of gain, 
ambitious to answer every social demand, and to 
aspire to the prominence and seeming distinction and 
ease of the wealthy, what a temptation there will be 
to mount the chariot of mammon, and rush its steeds 
to the coveted prize. Overswept by the spirit of 
avarice, how much you are in danger of blowing the 
coal into a flame, and of being bound by the burnished 
fetters of a passion. In the sweep of such a tide, 
unless God is your refuge, you are lost. You may 
set yourself against the evil of gain, but you have 
only to look about you to see how much stronger is 
gold than any merely human resistance. Let it be a 
fixed principle with you, quickened day by day by 
God's Word and Spirit, that honesty is the best 
policy ; that moderation and integrity are virtues that 
never fail ; that purity and honor are always profita- 
ble ; that truthfulness and trustworthiness are vastly 
better than basely-won wealth ; that a good conscience 
is far more than power ; and that all the material dis- 
play and elegance of the world cannot compensate 
for a clean record and an untarnished memory. God 
help you if you must be tempted by this flattering 
money-god, to meet the temptation in a manly way, 
and to stand noble and strong, as do the rocks of the 
cliff against which angry waves dash, only to be 
broken and swept back in confusion. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I 1 5 

And yet I must warn you against the prevalent, 
conviction that true happiness is to be found in riches. 
Many suppose that the perfection of human enjoy- 
ment, and the grandest aim of life, would be attained 
in the acquisition of wealth. I do not doubt that 
where the supremacy of man's noblest part is main- 
tained, and where all the higher responsibilities of life 
are met, that riches may be made to contribute largely 
to human happiness, and to a noble and permanent 
success. But when wealth is sought as a source of 
1 enjoyment in itself, and as a means for the larger 
gratification of the lower nature, and only as a gratifi- 
cation, the verdict of both history and experience is 
against it. This searching truth of the Word does 
not want for abundant and impressive illustration 
among those who are cursed with a greed for gain. 
" The love of money is the root of evil, which, while 
some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, 
and pierced themselves through with many sor- 
rows." 

It is unquestionably true, that the wealthy, as a 
class, are not the really happy people in this world 
Secured by honest or dishonest effort, it is rare that 
large wealth does not prove in the course of a life to 
be a great burden. It brings a thousand conditions 
that few are competent to meet without an amount 
of worry, and vexation, and real distress, that often 
makes life a drudgery. When will people learn that 
true happiness consists in what a man is, and not in 



Il6 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

what a man has? All the glory of heaven could not 
make an angel sing ; it is out of the harp of the soul 
the music comes. So all the money in the world 
cannot make a man happy, unless something holier 
puts music into his soul. 

If money is a man's chief joy, what comes of his 
happiness when his riches take to themselves wings 
and fly away ? What is a man's inner temper ? On 
that depends his happiness. If it be pure and lofty 
in its aspirations, money will contribute to his happi- 
ness ; but if it be selfish and groveling, his money will 
make him miserable. Avarice "blights the heart as 
autumnal fires ravage the prairies," and fills the soul 
with a jargon of discord. The greed of gain puts a 
fire into a man's eye that pierces like a shaft of light- 
ning ; it wilts his conscience, just as you have seen 
the early frost wilt a tender leaf; it measures his tread, 
and commands him as though he were a helpless 
thing, without any dignity of self-movement ; it puts 
a poison into his love, and into his blood, that hisses 
as it runs, and compels him to stoop and burn incense 
at shrines that are revolting to a noble nature. Is 
such a man happy ? 

Go into the homes of the rich, especially where the 
gain has been secured by dishonest means, and how 
many sad faces, and if the walls could speak, what 
sighs and bitter complaints, and upbraiding, and 
cursings, would come, from them, dreadful as the 
screams of a Lazaretto. Think of the fear of exposure 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. II~ 

with which these are often haunted; the fear of want 
and beggary when disaster comes : think of their 
woes who are thrust from affluence to poverty, and 
from ease and position to scorn and drudgery. Are 
these happy ? Of all people, are any more miser- 
able ? 

A young man bought ten shares of railroad stock. 
He sold at fifty dollars premium. His mother, aware 
of his tendency, said to him : " I wish you had lost 
it." Instead, he bought ten more, and sold at an 
advance of two hundred dollars. Now, he would 
make greater haste, and plunged into wilder schemes. 
In three short years forty thousand dollars were 
squandered, his health was gone, and his wife's heart 
was broken ; the golden hand wrote on the wall of his 
house : " Pierced through with many sorrows." How 
truly you might write over the massive door and on 
the rich walls of many a mansion, and cut as the 
fittest epitaph on many a marble shaft : " Destroyed 
by the love of money, and pierced through with many 
sorrows." An American editor, speaking of Fisk 
and Tweed, says : " When these men were dazzling 
the multitude with their shows and splendors, they 
knew that the world they lived in was unsubstantial ; 
and we have no question that they expected and con- 
stantly dreaded the day of discovery and retribution. 
We do not believe that rascality ever paid them for a 
day, even when it seemed to be most triumphantly 
successful." And what a sleep, and what a memory, 



Il8 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

are theirs ! Take warning, young men ! for whatever 
else entered into their ruin, the love of money was 
their basest and strongest passion. Were they happy? 
Ah ! was there anything beautiful and pure on earth 
that did not smite them like an angry devil ? Have 
you pure joy, and would you give it for their gain, 
and their shattered, polluted manhood ? With as 
much hope and profit might a bright, pure seraph, 
with unsullied wing, and gladsome, singing soul, offer 
to exchange with the blackest demon of the pit. No, 
wealth alone cannot make happy Kings have 
wearied and sickened of the splendors of their thrones 
and court. It is said that Charles X. tired of the 
gorgeousness that hung about him, and, with his 
dazzling retinue, went to the country, and clad as 
shepherds, turned to honest toil, that they might 
touch and know the sweetness of life. It is an old 
story, but one restless, ruined man is slow to learn, 
that true happiness never has been, never will be, 
found in the chase for riches. Men put this golden 
cup to their lips and drink with greed, not because 
the contents are valuable, but because they are weak. 
Mr. Emerson remarks : " Give me health and a June 
day, and I will make the pomp of kings ridiculous." 
And if, with that, a man can add God's smile and 
love, how he pours contempt on all the flimsy, fading 
possessions of the rich. " Home, industry, education, 
friends, honor, and religion, are the ministering angels 
that alone are worthy to wait upon the human soul." 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I 19 

Have these, and you stand in the midst of a choir 
whose symphony is only equaled by the chanting of 
the skies. 

Have vou ever thought of the limitations of wealth 
for all highest good and joy? It can achieve in the 
market-place, and amid the bustle and dust of cities ; 
but what do the angels care about currency, and bills 
of exchange, and stocks, and estates, or other perisha- 
ble values ? There is no great redemption of life 
that money can purchase ; death won't be bribed of a 
second by it ; the grave will not yield a single victory 
for gold. What is it worth when manhood, noble 
character, true happiness, and immortal hope, are the 
demand ? When you have come to a solemn crisis, 
what will it do for you? Hark ! from the thick and 
elegant drapery of that queenly couch hear a faint 
voice, as if the silver cord were loosened. It is not 
the cry of a beggar, but of royalty ; and what a cry : 
" Millions of money for an inch of time !" What an 
offer was that! What a jostle and commotion it 
would have made in the money mart if it had been 
possible, and how it would have revolutionized 
financial affairs for a time. But out of the solemn 
depths there was no response; there was money, but 
the pale angel said: ''Time shall be no longer." 
Was the gay queen happy ? was she rich ? " What 
shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and 
lose his soul." What a history do the money-loving, 
money-worshiping crowd afford, and to what an end 
the lust of gain has brought a multitude. 



120 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

" Mammon led them on ; 
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 
From heaven; for e'en in heaven his looks and thoughts 
Were always downward bent, admiring more 
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, 
Than aught, divine or holy, else enjoy'd 
In vision beatific." 

Money has its uses, it " answereth all things;" but 
only the man who is vigilant to see and overcome its 
perils will understand how to employ it so as to mold 
it into better coin. You need not be rich to be good, 
and happy, and useful ; but if it falls to your lot to 
have this additional responsibility added, remember 
that you must give an account as a steward of God, 
and that as you use it, it will prove a blessing or a 
curse. Unguarded, weak, and vacillating in your 
moral being, hasting to be rich will be a vortex in 
your path that will lure you to its edge; and if you 
go over, it will be into a bottomless pit. Whatever 
else you seek in the busy clamor of life, " seek first 
the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and you 
shall have imperishable riches. God grant, whether 
you ever tread the halls of wealth here or not, that 
your tired feet, delivered from every snare, may at 
last press the golden streets in heaven, and that out 
of the unsearchable riches of Christ you may get your 
eternal joy and song. 



CHAPTER V. 

CAUSES OF FAILURE IN LIFE. 

TT 7HEN one considers the vast compass of human 
' ' life, and then contemplates the end to which it 
is devoted by the great mass of men, the conviction is 
forced upon the mind that the majority fail. " Know 
ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one 
receiveth the prize." The thought of the Apostle here 
has its analogy in human life. The prize is before 
all, but only one here and there secures it. To every 
sober, thoughtful mind, there is something unuttera- 
bly sad in the reflection. That a being who bears a 
resemblance to the God who made all, and who pos- 
sesses endowments that distinguish him in honor 
above all other material creation, and in whose life 
repose such wondrous possibilities, should wholly 
fail, is a painful thought. But, however painful, it is 
daily and everywhere manifest that only a few out of 
the many attain to real and permanent success. Than 
this, there is no blacker margin about human life, 
and, however gloomy the fact, the young everywhere 
should get thrilling inspiration out of it. Look where 
you will on life's broad way, you will find the bleach- 
ing wrecks of thousands. What a record might be 

(121) 



122 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

written from the woes and disappointments of many 
whose lives have ended in failure ! To some the 
vision, as it became blacker and blacker, has proved 
unendurable, and the suicide's potion or weapon shot 
lightning through the " great horror of despair," and 
in its mocking glare they perished. Hundreds more 
drop out, leaving no source of benediction, and are 
forgotten ; and if a man leaves no relic of his life but 
that over which, with a sad significance, must be said, 
" Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," what 
a waste there has been. And when we remember 
that that life might have risen to an honorable immor- 
tality, how the sadness of the ruin is augmented. 
Yes, when a human life becomes but a wasting, failing 
" might have been," it is fearful, for — 

" Of all sad words of tongue and pen, 
The saddest are these — It might have been!" 

When a human life utterly fails, it is enough to put 
a drapery of grief about the heavens, and to hush the 
glad song of the morning stars and of the sons of 
God ; for it is a reproach upon creation, and upon 
God, who in man wrought his noblest work. As I 
look upon the great army of young men with the 
grim shadow of such a possibility falling upon them, 
I am stirred to win and help them to a better destiny. 
Could I be the means of saving one of you from 
failure in life, that would be an achievement that would 
make eternity vocal with joy; but if, after all effort, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 23 

one of you should utterly fail, whose tongue may 
speak the calamity ? I know not to what goal you 
are all coming, but the direction of your life-race can- 
not but be manifest to yourselves ; and if in anything, 
in the life you are living, you should know whether 
success or failure awaits you. 

But wherefore these failures in life ? However 
painful the contemplation, the solution of such a 
problem cannot but be profitable. The disposition to 
find a pretext for failure in life, elsewhere than in the 
life itself, has always been manifest. From the begin- 
ning men have sought to relieve themselves of the 
responsibility of evil ; it is identical with the selfish- 
ness of the human heart ; and hence it is not uncom- 
mon for men, when they see what a waste there is in 
such a failure, to attribute it to a cause quite remote 
from the real one. But the soundest intelligence, and 
that faith which reposes on the rock of God's revela- 
tion, forbids the thought that such failure can result 
from mere accident, or the absence of any merely 
human attainment ; the first is not consistent with 
infinite wisdom and rational endowment, and the 
second, in any prominent measure, has never been 
proven absolutely essential to the highest human 
success. Character in human life consists of far more 
than human gifts and attainments; and who may not 
have character? A man is better for education, but 
life can be made a success without learning. Wealth 
may serve noble ends, but poverty and the highest 



124 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

excellence ■ have more than once been clasped in 
beautiful embrace. Station has often been put to 
good account, but from the humblest walks of life 
have come the best angels on earth, and the brightest 
in heaven. When a life really fails, the root of the 
evil lies deeper than in any prize of human ambition, 
or effort, or fortune. Life is a great plan, and. the 
violation or observance of great laws will determine 
its destiny. Every man who fails in life is a law- 
breaker; he violates the noble conditions of his nature, 
and as well the high purpose of his creation. God 
has endowed each of you young men with a sover- 
eignty, the dignity of which is only equaled by its re- 
sponsibility, and your life will be very much as you 
will it to be. 

But there will be diversity of opinion as to what 
constitutes success or failure in this life. And it is 
very proper to discriminate, for what may be regarded 
as success is often nothing but humiliating failure, 
and what is sometimes looked upon as failure, is often 
truest success. All will depend upon the standard 
given to, and the standpoint from which life is viewed. 
What is success in a man's thought, may be, and often 
is failure in fact. It is said of Augustas Caesar, that 
on the morning of his death, conscious that he had 
but a little time to live, he called for a mirror, and 
requested that his white hair and beard be tastefully 
arranged. Then, asking those who stood by if he 
had not done his part well in the drama of life, he 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 25 

muttered a verse from a comic epilogue, inviting the 
attendants to greet his death with applause. He 
lived for and secured a bubble, and gave his last 
moments to vainest trifling; he died as a fool dieth, 
and yet had no thought that his life was a failure, and 
as little that a life like Paul's was a success. 

What a man's life is, may determine the question 
for himself, but unless he has measured his life by 
some other standard than that of his own choice or 
invention, he may not be assured that he is correct. 
On the other hand, some who seem to fail, only so 
seem because their success is quite beyond the«scope 
of the limited vision of many, and is not so manifest 
in the material — in that which can be counted, and 
hoarded, and handled — as in those unseen forces 
which are as mighty as they are pure. The best 
forces of the universe, when placed beside the pomp, 
and riches, ano? achievements of the world, seem to 
be a failure, but they are not. 

Washington was more successful on his knees than 
at the head of his army, but he did not seem so. 
There is much mistake here, and these lines of the 
poet have force: 

" Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed; 

Not all who fail Tiave therefore worked in vain ; 
For all our acts to many issues lead 

And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain, 
Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain, 
The Lord will fashion in his own good time 
(Be this the laborer's proudly humble creed), 
Such ends as, to his wisdom, fitliest chime 



126 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

With his vast love's eternal harmonies. 
There is no failure for the good and wise : 
What though thy seed should fall by the wayside 
And the birds snatch it ! — yet the birds are fed — 

Or they may bear it far across the tide, 
To give rich harvests after thou art dead." 

This will encourage the weary who are struggling 
up to noble success, but alone it is not sufficient to 
determine the standard of failure and success for us. 
But we may fix without mistake the test of this vital 
question, and if we desire, we may set our life in the 
direction of the truest and best goal. 

Taking man's origin, his endowments and possi- 
bilities, and God's revealed will into account, we shall 
be able to get at the only solution of this question 
which will be reliable and helpful. An invention in 
mechanics may be said to be successful when it fairly 
accomplishes the end for which it was made. So 
God, being man's Creator, and man his own rational, 
responsible creature, we would conclude that his life 
was a success when it accomplished the high end for 
which it was given. To leave God and his will out 
of the question, in putting a proper estimate on human 
life, is, to my mind, to stamp it at once with failure, 
and to make it unworthy of such attention as I am 
now giving it. To call that a success in a rational 
and responsible existence which involves nothing but 
quantity and show, and which is temporary and per- 
ishable, is absurd. It is unreasonable to talk of 
success in a human life without character and such 
elements of power as survive for good the mere form 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 27 

of human life which we see in the material part of the 
man. If I am doing nothing, if I can achieve nothing 
that will issue in highest good for others when I am 
dead, and will enshrine my memory in a beautiful 
immortality, for what am I living ? Did God make 
me, and give me my noble endowments of body, 
mind, and soul, only that I might satisfy my earthly 
appetites and desires ? only that I might grasp some 
earthly sceptre, and gather about me the treasures 
that waste to my touch, and will at last mingle with 
my own ashes ? Is this all ? Are these poor attain- 
ments the true success of life ? Then the outlay in 
my creation and powers are out of all proportion to 
the gain, and every human being is a reproach upon 
divine wisdom. There is but one standpoint which 
furnishes such a standard and is consistent with such 
a view of human life, and that is furnished by the 
atheist. Blot out God, plunge into the black night 
of atheism, and then the lowest gratification will be 
the greatest success in life. Are you ready for that ? 

" Behold, then, man, the creature of a day, 
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay. 
Frail as the leaf in autumn's yellow bower, 
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower; 
A friendless slave, a child without a sire, 
Whose mortal life and momentary fire 
Light to the grave his chance-created form, 
As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm. 
And when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er, 
To night and darkness sink forevermore." 

I should be pained to think that I addressed one 



128 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

young man who accepted such a hopeless theory of 
life, and regarded such an issue as success in it. We 
leave the atheist to his cold, godless, and -empty view, 
and rejoice in a higher and nobler standard by which 
to solve this mighty question. 

A successful life, then, is one which, in recognition 
of its high origin and God-given endowments, attains 
in the largest degree the end of its creation as its 
Author has revealed it, both in its own capacity and 
in his written will. In this view, of course, there will 
be variety in the degree of success. There are diver- 
sities of gifts — men differ in their endowments, and 
God works through men in harmony with their 
powers. But in some degree every life must declare 
God's glory to be successful, and every life that in no 
degree achieves the highest and best end of being, is 
a failure. 

" Creation's blot, creation's blank." 

What, now, are some of the causes of failure in 
life ? Many fail in life because of art utterly inade- 
quate conception of its nature and responsibilities. 
The philosopher would define life as force governed 
by laws, while many others regard it as an oppor- 
tunity for, and a means of, self-indulgence. Either 
view is far below such estimate as he must put upon 
it who would hope to get success out of it. We 
want to know what life is as a rational, practical, 
moral result; as an existence related to time, to 
responsible action, to God 'who gave it, and to the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I 29 

endless future. No man knows it in its solemn 
breadth, or can use it as he may and should, who 
does not admit these facts into his estimate of it. 
And just here is the fatal error, and hence the certain 
peril of many. Youth, especially, in its joyousness, 
its love of fancy, and extravagance of imagination, 
will not stop to view it in its higher relations, and 
hence many live only to squander life, aud they come 
to its close without hope — themselves the most pain- 
ful illustration of what a waste it can be made. The 
outcome of a man's life will be in harmony with the 
estimate he puts upon it, for as his estimate, so w r ill 
be his effort. If he does not get it above the dust, in 
the dust it will remain, and there will its folly be 
written. Men set out in life mindful of everything 
vanishing to which life can be given up, and utterly 
thoughtless that it holds embosomed possibilities that 
an angel might covet. 

Think of the solemnity of that existence with which 
yon are endowed. It came from God ; of all else in 
the material world, it is most like him ; it has a mar- 
velous power of thought, and yet as a child would a 
brittle and costly vase, you can dash it to the ground,, 
and the fragments will not be worth gathering ; you. 
cannot uproot the mountains, nor dislodge a single 
star, but in your life you can wound God's heart, and 
blot out, or cover with glory, the lofty purpose for 
which you were made; you can touch and influence 
for greatest good, or greatest evil, many running the 



I30 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

same course with you ; and you shall speak a gospel 
of blessing when you are dead, or set in motion a 
tempest that will never come to a calm, and will 
leave only a train of desolation behind. How solemn 
is life ! Beside it death is a trifle. And if yours is 
only a superficial view of life, if you rush through it 
thoughtlessly, if it is only to you a convenience, a 
game of chance, a giddy frolic, the flash and ragged, 
tawdry tinsel of your vain excess, then what a failure 
it will be, and when the palpitating curtain drops you 
will curse the day in which you were born. At a 
Quaker meeting a venerable man arose, and, in an im- 
pressive tone, said : " Many say it is a solemn thing 
to die ; but, bethink you all, and bethink you well, it 
is a solemn thing to live." The testimony is as vital 
as it is true, and who heeds it not will come to grief. 
But think of the difficulties that beset a human life. 
Many fail because they forget to count the cost. 
How often we hear men say of various enterprises 
they have undertaken, that, if they had known the 
hindrances and hardships attending their pursuit, they 
never would have undertaken it. But in the matter 
of life we have no choice ; we are here, God has con- 
ferred on us the dignity of birth, and the glory of 
existence, and he is base who regrets the endowment. 
But such is the constitution of things, that no man 
may regard life as a summer day, fit only for the 
amusement of children and the folly of the wicked. 
It is a great conflict, and all its successes are but the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 3 1 

result of a series of overcomings ; and the higher the 
sphere, and the nobler the aim, the more is this true. 
The young enter upon the struggle with the disad- 
vantage of no experience. It is at the beginning you 
need, so far as is possible, to consider the whole view 
of it, and thus prepare yourself for what awaits you. 
Many have learned — some to their sorrow — that the 
fancy and the romance with which the young are apt 
to clothe life, have all faded out before they proceeded 
very far; the showy, vain dream has vanished away, 
and lo ! there is reality and genuine conflict. How 
many, even, who are inspired by a good purpose, when 
the voyage becomes tempestuous, and there is need 
for the putting forth of every good force, are dis- 
heartened, and fall into ignoble defeat, as if it were an 
unavoidable calamity. The failure results from the 
wrong view they entertain of life. They run, but they 
do not win ; and they seek a grave in the shadows 
of withering disappointment. 

Young men, at the start be impressed with the 
battle, the real difficulties, that jar through the mys- 
tery of human life, all of which must go down in your 
success, or triumph in your failure. Who thinks he 
can dance his way through life and then pluck away 
its crown at the end, is but a fool dancing to the doom 
of his folly. Gird yourselves for the difficulties of 
life, and win its brightest victories in overcoming 
them. And let the thought that God has contem- 
plated all these difficulties in your creation, inspire 



132 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

you. It is not a cruel necessity, or an unavoidable 
calamity, that these difficulties so often overcome, 
and sometimes destroy men ; man was made and 
assigned his place in view of them, and, like the tree 
strengthened by the wind that often sways it, he is to 
be rooted in good purpose the more deeply and firmly 
because of these. 

" Whoever thinks, must see that man was made 
To face the storm, not languish in the shade. 
Action's his sphere, and for that sphere designed, 
Eternal pleasures open on the mind." 

Think of the grandeur of a human life. Aside from 
God's own being, I know of nothing that involves so 
much of the really sublime, that towers so far above 
all the utterance of speech, as a well-rounded, truly 
successful life. Every noble inspiration centres in 
and appeals to this. But what crowds surge on with- 
out any thought of what life may be, only to add to 
that great heap of wreck — the accumulation of ages, 
the waste of human hopes, and the sorrow of the 
race. Every life carries with it the possibilities of a 
glorious success or of a hopeless failure. Invention 
and skill have wrought the ivory, and the ore, and 
the marble, and the gloomy morass, into such beauty 
of form, and such large usefulness, as to make them 
embody the very majesty of intellect itself; but none 
of these, or aught else the world can produce, have 
such capacity for excellence and real glory as may 
be found in a single human life. Faith and affection, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 33 

self-denial and duty, integrity and fidelity, piety and 
prayer, can mold a human life into an order and a 
splendor of achievement that will thrill the angels, 
and send a harmony down through the ages that will 
bear with it the echo of the song that announced a 
Saviour's advent; and it will only cease to be heard 
as a distinct power for good, when swallowed up in 
the louder acclaim of the jubilee shout of all the 
ransomed returned. Oh ! what a compass of the 
sublime ! what a reach of the immortal ! what a 
sweep of the celestial and unutterable there may be 
in each of you, and will be, if, in God's way, you 
make your lives truly a success. Think how these 
lives stretch on when the material manifestation has 
disappeared, and they penetrate the unseen which is 
eternal. We have now commenced our eternity. 
That of which we think in the misty future is but the 
continuation of this, and if noble and holy, it is the 
moving on of a life into larger, and freer, and higher 
conditions, and into achievements of which we have 
now but faintest conception. On such a view, who 
'dare think lightly of life, and what ruin, what disap- 
pointment like that which attends its failure ? To all 
this add the fact that your life can never be repeated. 
It belongs to a proper estimate of life to remember 
this. Many live as if they had an abundance of lives, 
and could afford to waste one or more, leaving yet a 
last one to achieve goodness and a happy destiny. 
But it cannot be: the failure of one is the failure of all. 



134 LIF E THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

" If I had my life to live over," is a frequent, but a 
most hopeless wish. There is no gazing on the 
wreck when the shadows of life's close thicken upon 
it, nor any opportunity then for reconstruction. 
Others may profit by the failure, but if you fall in the 
race, you cannot redeem yourself by a fresh and 
better start. The stamp you put upon yourself — the 
destiny you have wrought out — is as unchangeable 
as the eternal decrees. Can any life be successful 
that disregards this fact ? 

Think of it, young men; there is one existence, 
with all its endowments, with all its opportunities 
before you ; that wasted, all is wasted — the ruin is 
eternal. You can retrieve a fortune ; you can even do 
something to wipe out the blush of dishonor ; you can 
redeem the time; but when the hour-glass is emptied, 
there is no law by which it can be refilled, and if its 
last sands mingle with the dust of failure, you must 
carry the woe of it into eternity. 

• " Not many lives, but only one have we, 

One, only one ! 
How sacred should that one life ever be, 

That narrow span! 
Day after day filled up with blessed toil, 
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil." 

And if men go thoughtless through life, without 
regard to these inevitable issues, and therefore with- 
out the wisdom that will enable them to use it as not 
abusing it, is it strange that they fail ? It would be 
strange if they succeeded. But if all its capacity and 



LIFE. THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 35 

purpose are apprehended and honored, what unspeak- 
able value attaches to it? So live, my young friends, 
and your brief life will be richer in every element of 
noblest success than 

<; Twenty seas, though all their shores were pearl, 
Their waters crystal, and their rocks pure gold." 

Another cause of failure in life is a bad beginning. 
What has been said may refer to the beginning of 
life, but there are other phases of it which need a 
special emphasis. Many a life-failure may be traced 
to an unfortunate beginning. A man may begin well 
and fail, but far more fail because the beginning was 
faulty. As men start in the active pursuits of life, 
they generally continue. Very few retrace their steps 
when habit is formed, and the chosen method of life 
has been adopted. Young men often fall into this 
peril, and discovering the mistake by and by, they 
become disheartened, and then indifferent, and then 
desperate. A few turn about and start over and bet- 
ter, but the majority never rectify themselves. A 
false pride and an unreasonable perverseness resist 
any change. 

Men often look over life with anything but a feeling 
of satisfaction, and only embittered by their folly, say 
— " Well, I began this way, and I have now gone too 
far on the way ; I cannot change." It is the law of 
habit illustrated. If the beginning were good it 
would be well, but when bad it is an accumulating 



$6 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 



ruin. 



If the ship start with a leak, it will likely go 
to the bottom of the sea before the end of the voy- 
age ; and so, no life can succeed that starts with a 
wrong aim and a confused plan. Thousands of 
young men wed themselves to some vice, and then 
start on the race of life; and they get on but a little 
way until they find that they have a mill-stone about 
their necks. It is as if a man in the pursuit of health 
would wrap the infected garments of a fatal disease 
about his person. "One of the most affecting things," 
says one, " that I ever remember to have read, was a 
letter from a young man who, in his early manhood, 
was dying of his vices, far away from the home of 
his childhood, addressed to his brother, then just 
coming into youth. He had himself resisted the 
entreaties, and disappointed the hopes, and almost 
broken the heart, of a godly mother, and was still 
going on to meet the dreadful penalty ; but though he 
could not save himself, he could not bear that a be- 
loved brother should come to the same miserable end. 
By every argument he begged him not to allow the 
power of evil to be felt on him. With most affecting 
entreaties he besought him to take warning from his 
fate, and to keep himself beyond the outmost circuit 
of the mighty whirlpool so certain to draw in and to 
engulf all that should come within its sweep." He 
began badly. He ended as he began. His precious 
life was a hopeless failure. But there are other 
aspects of this thought which it is important to con- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 37 

sider. There is an element of conceit in human 
nature. It is not at all unusual for young men to 
think more highly of themselves than they ought to 
think, and this weakness generally develops very 
early. It often wastes the resources and blights the 
hopes of a life at the beginning. In any sphere, and 
at any time, the conceit of present attainment is very 
damaging. 

It is well, it is noble, to start with a high ideal in 
the sphere to which a man is called, but it is most 
unfortunate if he fail to recognize the present dispro- 
portion between his capacity and the ideal. We are 
not to forget that life is a process ; that however 
grand the ascent, we can only reach the top by climb- 
ing; and a consciousness of distance from so com- 
manding a position gives nerve and determination and 
rapidity to the effort, but a conviction of capacity for 
the top, when we have not yet mastered the space 
between, is the paralysis of all attainment. " Seest 
thou a man wise in his own conceit ? there is more 
hope of a fool than of him." Prov. xxvi. 12. 

It is most true in a life-beginning. If you start 
with scorn for superiors, in an undertaking however 
good — if you assume to teach when you have need 
to be taught — if you elect to run a vein of offensive 
vanity through your life — you have fastened an evil 
upon it tha,t will eat up its hope as a cancer eats the 
flesh. Such a spirit' often leads the young to give 
undue prominence to the superficial, the showy side 



I38 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

of life. They will make much out of their dress, out 
of their appearance, and out of their position. What 
a delusion ! " Young men should strive less after 
ornament than depth of character. They must do 
the rough work of digging before they attempt the 
decorative work of papering and painting. If you 
are going to build a house, you don't begin with the 
painter and gilder. Alas ! in building a life, many 
youths are content to dispense with the work that 
gives stability and duration. A pasteboard hut will 
do — yes, do until it is borne off by the mocking winds, 
never to be seen again. I don't count your virtues 
by your buttons. Some men are all coat and no 
character. Others read no book but the looking- 
glass." If your view of and your purpose in life 
roots no deeper than this, your foundation is sand, 
and your fancy fabric will fade and fall, and the ruin 
will not appeal to the sympathy of men, so much as 
reproach your own manhood and gifts. 

Then, again, such a vain and trifling beginning is 
apt to beget in young men that discontent which 
scorns to do anything, because of inability to do some 
great thing. This folly sets aside the only sure pro- 
cess of eminent attainment in life. The great successes 
in life are chiefly the legitimate outgrowth of a right 
beginning, and of triumph in humbler spheres. The 
man who is ambitious to begin at the top, reverses an 
order as inflexible as law, and fails. It is contrary to 
God's ordination. " He that is least among you all, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 39 

the same shall be great." " If ye then be not able to 
do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for 
the rest ?" Here is the law, God's law of progress 
and promotion, and no man may attain to the great 
until he has mastered the less. To do what you can, 
to succeed in your own limited, humble sphere, is the 
assurance of efficiency higher up. Can you not rule 
the commercial world ? You may do better and 
accomplish more in an average position, as an upright 
and honorable man of business Can you not whirl 
round the dizzy orbit of a Galileo or a Newton ? 
You need not bury your talent in the ground on that 
account, but toss your single drop into the crystal*sea 
of human knowledge, and make the world, by so 
much, happier and better. Can you not rival a 
Cicero, a Burke, or a Webster ? And why live use- 
lessly on that account, when you may adorn the bar 
or the Senate by a ministry not less needed, though 
it be less brilliant ? If you cannot flash like a meteor, 
then shine like a glow-worm. The great rolling, 
thundering song of the redeemed is made up of single 
voices, and of many strains wrought into sympathy ; 
and in the great, sweet psalm of noble life you will do 
much to add the single note you may. If young 
men would recollect this at the start, if they would 
not attempt to leap over difficulties that must be over- 
come, and opportunities that dare not be set aside, 
many would attain eminence who, from proud impa- 
tience, only achieve indifferently, or fail altogether. 



I4O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Another evil that often characterizes the beginning, 
and cumbers the whole way of life, is the misfortune 
of being misplaced. Many men are mere ciphers, 
they never will succeed, because they are out of place. 
Human life is a great plan, and the variety of mind 
and method it invites, is equal to the variety of human 
gift. For every man there^is a place, and he only is 
wise who seeks it by the light of God's word and 
providence. But at the very beginning many commit 
the fatal mistake of getting into the wrong place. In 
all the roll of trades, and professions, and callings 
of every sort, there are men out of place, with- 
out capacity for their work, and, of course, with- 
out success in it. There are many young men am- 
bitious for the bar, for the senate, for the throne of 
commercial dominion, and, now and then, one for the 
pulpit, whose mission would be better filled by grasp- 
ing the handles of the plow, or some tool of the 
mechanic. I mean no disrespect to the humblest 
calling. I have taught you that all legitimate work 
is honorable. The success of a man's life is not upon 
his doing this or that, so much as his doing well 
what God has given him the capacity to do. Sup- 
pose the great city clock in the church tower should 
weary of its lofty position, and the little Geneva refuse 
longer to be hidden in your vest pocket. The one 
wishes to come down, and to be swung about your 
neck, the other to be raised up where the human eye 
could not see it. Reverse their positions, and both 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I4I 

are useless ; let them alone in the places for which 
they were made, and the Geneva will serve the owner 
hour by hour, and the great clock in the tower, with 
dial ten feet round, and iron tongue, will tell the 
passers-by to redeem the time. " God has made 
everything beautiful in his time," and in nothing is it 
truer and more important than in human life. It will 
be a very great misfortune, young men, if, in starting 
out in life, you commit this mistake, which, when 
tolerated for a time, is not so easily corrected. In 
choosing a life-work, do not be deceived by the glare 
and flourish of something for which, perhaps, you 
have no more capacity than the graceful antelope 
would have t© draw the great drays of the city mart. 
Dr. Ray Palmer well observes : " Happy they who 
wisely consider this, and find it in their hearts to 
pursue faithfully and steadily the ends which their 
own fitness, and the natural order of events, have 
placed before them. He who cheerfully consents to 
do the particular work, whether in itself pleasant or 
unpleasant, that Providence assigns him, is like a ship 
that lays her course so as to have the advantage of 
favoring wind and tide. Working in harmony with 
that resistless will that determines all events, he can- 
not but succeed ;" disregard it, and failure is sure. 

But another cause of failure in life is the want of a 
definite aim. We cannot live to much purpose when 
we live at random. No life in God's thought is a 
confusion. The high origin, the splendid resources, 



142 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

and the appointed destiny of human life, all indicate 
that it was meant to fulfill a definite purpose, and to 
reach a consummation which should be some grand 
aggregate of its own excellent endeavor. Set it in 
the right direction to accomplish some worthy object, 
and however humble it be, God will give it his bene- 
diction ; but let life be aimless, indifferent of any good 
and permanent result, distributed over a wide scope, 
and superficial everywhere, and it will scarce be 
worthy the name it bears. Only those attain endur- 
ing eminence in any laudable sphere, who set their 
energies and concentrate their efforts upon the mas- 
tering of it. A life without an aim, a fixed and noble 
purpose, is always at immense disadvantage ; it 
ventures upon the life-race with as much peril as a 
vessel put to sea without a destination. It is not 
only weakened^y the division and disorderly exercise 
of its forces, but is also hedged about by circumstances 
and accidents which must baffle it continually. In a 
world like this, with a nature and responsibilities 
such as ours, no man can afford to live extempore; 
and yet in this wild and aimless way many young 
men set out on the sea of life, knowing not, and caring 
as little, whither the merciless winds will drive them. 
The sun has his course, and so does every strong, 
true man set out to run his race. Only such win. 
But many only float like drift with the stream. They 
are helpless victims in a current over which they 
have no control. They recognize no law, and are 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 43 

governed by no fixed plan. Inspired by no good 
result, they waste as they move, and contribute only 
to the wreck that lies in decay all along the shore, 
and nothing remains to inscribe to their memory but 
the name they have dishonored. Young men, my 
hope vanishes for you if, with all your possibilities 
and opportunities, you have no noble pursuit in life 
to which you are giving your princely' endowments. 
In some way, and for some end, your life-forces must 
be spent, but there is a vast difference between waste 
and wise appropriation. Give yourself to some noble 
aim, and you shall not be as the useless chippings the 
sculptor strikes, from the block, to be trodden under 
foot, or ground to powder under the wheels of traffic, 
but may realize the sentiment of these lines of 

Angelo: 

» 

" The more the marble wastes, 
The more the statue grows." 

The man who is unconcerned in such a vital matter, 
and suppresses all the nobler emotions of his soul by 
asserting, with an independence that only shows how 
weak he is, that " The world owes him a living," 
degrades his manhood, and strikes the hope out of 
his life. 

Parents are much at fault here. They often bring 
up their children to know much of the superficial, 
vain, and flippant side of life, but tell them nothing of 
its nobler uses and responsibilities. They push them 



144 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

from the threshold as the wind drives a boat from its 
moorings ; they regard life as a kind of lottery, and, 
without any noble aim, they trust their children to 
chance. It is as cruel as it is unreasonable. 

I assure you, young men, that if your livgs be aim- 
less, they will fail ; no human life ever just happened 
to turn out well. Aimlessness in life is lawlessness, 
and lawlessness is failure. Decide wisely and 
promptly upon what you are appointed to do, and 
then give yourself up to it ; and so long as you 
recognize the Author of your being, you may bid 
defiance to every opposing force. When I know 
what I have a high ordination to do, when I live for 
that, I have all advantage on my side. To that end 
I adjust all my time, all my gifts. I have my own 
hands on the forces, and I make every stroke tell 
my determination appropriates my resources, and my 
life becomes a rational, earnest thing, possessing 
unity and method. An aimless life must be a life of 
perpetual discontent; there is no power in it; there is 
no compass in it; like the showy, but fruitless tree, it 
is "nothing but leaves." Pity the man, take warning 
as you read his name in the dust, who has quit the 
world without rearing some monument, or achieving 
some substantial good. It is the penalty of an aimless 
life. 

And beware, young men, that you do not lumber 
yourselves with numerous enterprises, as if skill was 
monopolized by a few, and you were appointed to do 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I /J. 5 

your own and others' work as well. Such men, a 
little weak at the beginning-, divide their strength, and 
the capacity for any laudable work is wanting; and, 
grasping for much, they lose all. The great men of 
the world have been men of a single aim, and, given 
up to it, they became distinguished for the one noble 
thing in which they excelled. It is not meant that 
you shall entirely isolate yourself from good endeavor 
in the other worthy pursuits of life ; but there must 
be a point of concentration, and one grand aim in all 
the field of your operation. What you are to avoid 
is not variety in your attainments ; explore every field 
possible, and glean where you can; but beware of dis- 
sipation ; let the result of your effort centre like the 
light in the sun, in one sublime purpose, and from 
that let the glory of your life flash immortal. There 
is much significance in the homely adage, " Jack of 
all trades and master of none." Such men never 
bring anything to completion, and never coin their 
lives into anything permanent. Some of the noblest 
natures, and some of the greatest intellects, have been 
wasted by this foolish process. 

Have an aim; let God and human good be supreme 
in # it ; let it be worthy enough to be an altar, and lay 
yourself upon it; and, though it consume' the outward 
man, it will lift the inner man into the conditions of 
immortal power and beauty, and the finished result 
you bequeath to mankind will be your most endur- 



I46 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

" The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, 
May hope to achieve it before life be done ; 
But he who seeks all things wherever he goes, 
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows, 
A harvest of barren regrets. And the worm 
That crawls on in the dust to the definite term 
Of its creeping existence, and sees nothing more 
Than the path it pursues, till the creeping be o'er, 
In its limited vision, is happier far 

Than the Half Sage, whose course, fixed by no friendly star, 
Is by each distracted in turn, and who knows 
Each will still be as distant wherever he goes." 

Another cause of failure in life is the absence of 
sound moral principle. Life is the gift of God, and 
his wisdom and power are alike manifest in its endow- 
ments and purposes; and whatever its sphere, failure 
is inevitable unless it be operated by such methods 
and for such ends as he can approve. A man's call- 
ing may be proper in itself, but if he degrade it by 
immorality in himself, that will vitiate the good, and 
insure his failure. No matter how costly, or how 
beautiful a fabric, if a discolored or rotten thread run 
through it, it is ruined. A dead fly in the ointment 
will make it offensive. Many a life, otherwise noble, 
is destroyed by the rotten thread and dead fly of bad 
principle. 

The discoloring and decay of wrong principles ^re 
the ruin of the whole wonderful web. How often it 
is said of men — of young men — " He is a promising, 
noble-hearted man, but he is an infidel — he has cast 
aside the Bible, which is the chart and compass of 
every true life." Or, " He is a talented lawyer, but 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 47 

he drinks." " He is an excellent business man, but 
he is tricky." " He is a fine mechanic — a kind 
husband — but he gambles." " He has gifts, promises 
to be a scholar, but he is vain, a spendthrift, and 
irreligious." Ah ! yes, young men, " Naaman was a 
mighty man in valor, but he was a leper." What 
matter a man's gifts, the brilliancy of his opportuni- 
ties, and the respectability of his calling, if he plant 
some moral cancer in the very heart of them. It is 
as if a man would bury a lot of destroying insects 
with the roots of a rare and costly plant, and then 
expect that it would grow, and bloom, and throw off 
its beauty and fragrance. Of all things, nothing will 
so soon and so thoroughly produce failure in life as 
the lack of good moral principles, and this evil has a 
painful predominancy to-day. 

So many of the noblest callings of life have become 
identified with wrong, that young men have come to 
think, and, indeed, are sometimes taught, that if they 
would succeed, they must adopt practices that violate 
God's law, and dishonor manhood. It is one of the 
snares of the devil, peculiar to the times, but as a 
means of success it is as false as its author, and he is 
a liar from the beginning. To claim that the immoral, 
the irreligious life, is a success over the one reared on 
a basis of sound moral and religious principles, is a 
slander upon the nature of God, a contradiction of 
everything noble in rational life, and a complete denial 
of God's written Word. The orbit of ricdit is the 



I48 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

orbit in which God has set every human life, and by 
so much as it diverges from that, it revolts against 
every law of success, and strikes darkness into every 
star of hope that encircles it. 

What you want, young men, is character — not the 
show of it, not the evil of it, but a character which is 
the sum of all good things, the predominating force 
of the life; a sound, healthy character, one of God's 
own moulding, which cannot be swayed by the decep- 
tion of evil, or the intrigue of men. Of all deformities, 
there is none greater than a life without a character. 
It is like the fatal flaw in the precious stone — like the 
poisonous miasma in the luxuriant palace — the de- 
struction of all. The beginning of real life with you, 
is to be the beginning of character ; and the progress 
and success of your life must be the progress and 
success of character; for in behalf of character the 
vast mechanism of time is set in motion/social order 
has been established, and laws have been ordained. 
The issue of your life will be character; if it be good, 
angels will share the success of it ; if bad, then you 
fail. A man without character is virtually dead, for 
his life is only rich as a plague is rich. In your 
motive, in your method, in your aim, you must have 
sound moral principles, or what you have, and what 
you do, will issue in a curse instead of a blessing. It 
is a reasonable and righteous thing to demand of you, 
that you be governed by Christian principle. You 
are worthy of this, and the faculties you possess, and 



LIFE THOUGHTS TOR YOUNG MEN. 1 49 

the possibilities of your being; to say nothing of your 
high origin, should lead you to scorn a life that is 
corrupt in its impulses and purposes. Oh! how many 
lives there are that are hopelessly failing because 
of this lack. How shall it be with you ? It shall be, 
I am sure, as you decree. If you mean to live for 
gratification, and not for principle, you may do so ; 
but who ever saw anything but ashes on the shrine 
of lust? Believe me, it is a solemn consideration, 
that in your lives you are to succeed or fail, and one 
or the other as you elect. If you wish, you may live 
so that there will be nothing positive, nothing perma- 
nent, nothing worth saving in your life. You may 
live so that your history can only be written thus : 
" Little, less, nothing." If you wish, you need not 
mix in the world's fray ; you need not send any sword 
on earth, nor kindle any fire at which the children of 
evil will cry out ; you can do as you please, but when 
you have done so, your soul will be wasted to hideous 
leanness ; and across the scope of your life no one 
will have written so boldly as yourself, the only cer- 
tain verdict — failure! Oh, that you may rather 
choose that highest prosperity with which God can 
bless you, and that you may have that consciousness 
of peace, and enjoyment of hope, which can come by 
no other method than that of the fullest self-sacrifice, 
and the most determined devotion to principles which 
are divine and eternal. 

Are any of you to fail in life ? not in any special 



I50 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

undertaking, but of the sublime issues and end of 
life ? When the end comes, will you have left such 
a waste behind, that others will be constrained to feel 
what you are ready to confirm, '" It were better if that 
man had not been born ?" Rather may you so run 
as to obtain; and when the race is over, and you look 
back over the way, God forbid that it shall be to see 
the ashes of your opportunities and hopes, or to 
exclaim with a celebrated French marshal — " My life 
has been a failure." 

" We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 



CHAPTER VI. 

ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN LIFE. 

I^HE noblest material manifestation of God on 
- earth is a human being. Such are you to whom 
I speak. Creatures not of chance, but sons of God, 
your noble endowments forbid the thought that one 
of you was created for other than the highest end. 
Man's destiny in God's thought is not less sublime 
and holy now than it was when he walked in inno- 
cence with his Maker among the trees of the garden. 
There is a new order, for man has fallen; but so vast 
is human redemption, that it even more than com- 
pensates for what man has lost in the ruin of the race. 
And now, as then, God reigns in a vast providential 
system, and in it man, every man, has a place; and 
who lives in harmony with it, will fulfill his mission, 
and attain' a destiny unutterably blessed. If men fail, 
and certainly and sadly thousands do, it is no purpose 
of God's that they should fail, for he has given a plan 
of success for all ; their failure is their own crime. 
There is something thrilling, and, to every rational 
being, there should be an unfailing inspiration in the 
thought, that human life is not an indifferent thing in 
God's mind, but a plan, which, if followed, issues in 
glorious success. 

(150 



1 5^ LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

The Holy Ghost enjoins no impossibility in this 
stirring utterance : " So run, that ye may obtain." 
The late Dr. Bushnell expresses the thought' very 
beautifully in these words : " Every human soul has 
a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the 
heart of God — a divine biography marked out, which 
it enters into life to live. This life, rightly unfolded, 
will be a complete and beautiful whole, an experience 
led on by God and unfolded by his secret nurture, as 
the trees and flowers by the secret nurture of the 
world ; a drama cast in the mold of a perfect art, with 
no part wanting ; a divine study for the man himself, 
and for others ; a study that shall forever unfold, in 
wondrous beauty, the love and faithfulness of God ; 
great in its conception, great in the divine skill by 
which it is shaped, above all, great in the momentous 
and glorious issues it prepares." As a thought and 
purpose of God, as a hope set before us, how sublime 
this is ! 

But man perverts his greatness, and by that sover- 
eignty of will which was meant to be his noblest 
dignity, he often chooses another plan, and lives in 
antagonism to God and law, and reaps all the way, and 
at the end, the reward of his folly. In all God's 
creation, who so foolishly disobedient in the sphere 
of life, as man ? The planets, every smallest star, 
conform to God's plan, and in their silent shining- 
give glory to God ; but man, greater than all, revolts, 
and goes dashing to ruin. " The ox knoweth his 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 53 

owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth 
not know, my people doth not consider." Withal, 
you all have the advantage of the great truth — your 
life a plan of God, to be wrought out by the help of 
his wisdom and love. What a telling inspiration the 
thought should be to you, young men; and how it 
should lead you to give to the winds all feeling of 
disappointment and discouragement. You are here, 
and have the endowments of a great end, and the 
great possibilities of your existence should stir within 
you the brightest hopes and noblest endeavors. If 
you are in the sphere God has marked out for you ; 
if you have carried his Spirit into it, and made his 
will the law of it; no matter how outwardly humble it 
be, there stretches out before you a thrilling prospect. 
Think how the present life ties to the future ; how 
that and this constitute one grand existence, and how 
out of this must and will come the unutterable glory 
of that, if success shall crown your efforts. 

When God condescends actually to incarnate him- 
self in every human life, bringing to each his infinite 
forces and infallible direction, there should not be a 
disheartened or unhappy man in all the world. This 
fact should exalt life to the highest dignity in our 
thought, and lead every one of you to consecrate it 
to the holiest use and end. 

But when this truth is accepted, a variety of ele- 
ments enter into the success of life. Whatever the 
theory or doctrine of life, it avails nothing without 



154 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

the practice. God's great plan implies human condi- 
tions that must be complied with. With our consent, 
he will work in and through us, but always in 
harmony and co-operation with the exercise of our 
gifts and the improvement of our opportunities. 
There are many elements of success that have their 
manifestation entirely on the human side, and that 
need cultivation and right direction. With a right 
plan, God has given you gifts, and these are not to be 
neglected; they are to be apprehended, and so exer- 
cised as to produce force and efficiency; and unless 
this be done, it matters little how innocent the life, 
there will be little permanent success. A successful 
life is far more than a simply inoffensive life ; it must 
be a truly useful life. It is really of little avail that a 
young man does no harm, if he does no good. Such 
a condition is scarce possible; but there are lives that 
are seemingly very harmless, and that, like thistle- 
down in the wind, have no force, and issue in no 
permanent good. I am sure you do not wish to be 
such ciphers among men, presenting the anomaly of 
a rational soul without dignity and power. 

Assuming now that you have a right aim in life, 
let us notice some of the elements of success in it : 

The first I mention is Capacity. I mean by it, tact 
and skill to accomplish well what you have under- 
taken. How many men, in all the spheres of life, 
have failed, and are failing to-day, because of incapac- 
ity. They are not equal to the demand made upon 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR VOUNG MEN. 1 55 

them, and they must endure the humiliation of 
knowing that the calling or profession they have 
chosen is greater than they are. The progress of the 
world is very great in these times, and a very much 
wider compass has been given to all honorable occu- 
pations. The slow and confused methods of business, 
and of all kinds of enterprise and labor, and of all 
sorts of culture, that marked the times a quarter of a 
century ago, will not answer now. There has been 
advance — civilization moves on a higher plane, and 
if we would succeed we must be the masters, not the 
slaves, here. It is not expected that you will spring 
to this capacity at once ; in many spheres it is a 
long process ; but, in any event, you should be so 
superior to your calling or profession, as to utilize 
it, and not allow it in any particular to wait on you. 
The time should come to every young man, when, by 
reason of his growing capacity, he should be able to 
magnify the scope of his particular calling, and to 
dictate to it. " Whatever is worth doing at all, is 
worth doing well;" and it is a painful reproach upon 
a man's endowments when his own work does not 
commend him. 

How very much men regard this test to-day. It 
matters not how correct a young man's habits may 
be, or what letters of commendation he may carry 
with him, the vital question is — What can he do in 
the sphere in which he asks a place or promotion ? 
His work must commend him, else his way to success 



I56 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

is obstructed. And this incapacity, which interferes 
with the success of so many, and often blights and 
dwarfs the whole life of many a young man, is all the 
more to be chided, because it results not always from 
the individual being misplaced, nor from the compass 
and dignity of what he has undertaken, but often from 
haste to undertake that for which the man is not yet 
girded, or from an indifference which forbids improve- 
ment afterwards. Many a young man attempts to 
plead law, when he should be studying Blackstone ; 
or to practice medicine, when he should be dealing 
only with anatomy, the laws of health, and the appli- 
cation of remedies to diseases ; or to preach, when he 
should yet be struggling to master the elementary 
principles of theology, and trying to solve the problem, 
of human nature ; or to teach, when he should be on 
the pupil's bench familiarizing himself with English 
grammar; or to fill a place in the counting-room, or 
on the mart, when he should be studying arithmetic, 
the laws of trade, and acquiring that tact, and skill, 
and comprehension of men, which belong to commer- 
cial success. 

Undoubtedly, in this fast age, the incapacity of 
men results from too great haste to grapple with the 
responsibilities of life. But much of the evil might 
be overcome here, if men were not often indifferent to 
the habit of application. Many men have acquired a 
capacity in their work, by persistent effort, that puts 
to the blush their first attempts. They wonder now 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 57 

that they could ever have been such imbeciles, or 
that they could have been so presumptuous as 'to 
make such pretensions. But many are indifferent, con- 
tent only if they have a place ; their aim is the profit it 
brings them, and not capacity. No matter where a 
man is, no matter what he is doing, or what he aspires 
to, there is painful and constant disadvantage in lack 
of capacity. He cannot have a first place ; he must 
follow in the rear, and wins no prize, and must bear 
the mortification not always of knowing himself why 
he does not succeed, but of knowing that others lay 
it to the charge of his inefficiency. The truth is, my 
young friends, there is no room for inefficiency any- 
where. The unfurnished workman is out of place 
everywhere. Any sphere worthy the time and en- 
dowments of a rational man, demands of right that 
he should be so competent in it, as in large measure, 
at least, to be the master of it. 

And see what advantage capacity gives to a man. 
How much less waste of body and mind there is, 
where honest ability is brought to the work in hand. 
There is often great waste in nature. The mountain 
stream, very beautiful indeed, but with great noise, 
and now and then carrying away on its ruffled surface 
the hut of the peasant, often dashes away to very 
little purpose; but when some one comes along and 
utilizes it — turns it on the wheel, brings it in to the con- 
ditions of real power — it flows more orderly, the roar 
and damage of it are taken away, and it accomplishes 



I58 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

something. So with many who are incompetent in 
life. They roar, and dash, and spend themselves, and 
achieve little. They often work hard, but they are 
unused to the harness, unfamiliar with the conditions 
of success, and helpless to accomplish with much 
greater effort what others achieve with much less. 
But if there be capacity, then there is adaptation of 
man's powers to the work in which he is engaged, 
and the force expended issues in a gratifying compen- 
sation. Whatever your calling, learn to work in it, 
so that the strength you expend will not be wasted, 
but appropriated, and so appropriated as to return to 
you more than you have given. 

With capacity a man's work becomes productive ; 
under all ordinary circumstances the profit must be 
on his side, and with a smaller capital he will do and 
gain more than the incompetent man whose material 
resources are greater. Then, too, where there is 
capacity, a man's work becomes a luxury. There is 
a freshness, a relish, a vivacity, a real harmony in it, 
out of which he gets music. His work is to his soul 
what the soft evening wind is to the strings of an 
aeolian harp — his life is a psalm, and every day is 
lighted up with the inspiration of success. 

Young men, be sure of an upright calling, be sure 
to find the one, high or low, to which God has 
appointed you, and then aim to excel in it. Acquire 
such large capacity in your work as to make yourself 
a real necessity to your employer, or to the com- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I 59 

munity in which you live. Strive for the efficiency 
that will put you in demand, and bring you to the 
top, where there is always room. But do not be dis- 
heartened if the ability of permanent success does not 
come at once. Patiently and conscientiously strive 
for enlargement, and be dissatisfied unless you make 
daily progress. Grow in your sphere of work, what- 
ever it be, until you can respond to all of its condi- 
tions and responsibilities, and you will have come 
into the possession of one of the elements of a truly 
successful life. 

Another element of success to which I direct 
attention, is Earnestness and Perseverance. Carlyle 
says : " The race of life has become intense. The 
runners are treading on each other's heels ; woe be to 
him who stops to tie his shoe-strings." The want of 
earnestness and persistency to-day in any noble work 
is the assurance of failure. The higher enterprise 
and civilization rise, the wider their reach becomes, 
the greater are the difficulties in the way of successful 
achievement, and the more do men require the ele- 
ments of conquest. And this earnestness, which 
involves perseverence and the stimulating force of 
hope, is natural to well-ordered youth. Age may 
lag ; the step of three-score may halt in the race ; the 
form weighted with the infirmities that, hfdden in the 
twilight of life, come out at last, may surrender its 
stateliness, and the flame of vigor, and the flush of 
power, may fade from the countenance of such a one ; 



l60 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUMG MEN. 

but such evidences of decay are unnatural to young- 
men, and can contribute nothing to the success of 
your life-work. When youth loses its fire, its 
sprightliness, it is as a broken column, or as a palace 
in ruin. 

A young man, endowed with gifts, and the sublime 
possibilities of existence, who is not in earnest, who 
has no push, is a breathing thing, but not a living, 
effective force. You can never be yourselves ; you 
can never manifest or justly employ your powers, 
without that fervor and perseverance which have no 
such revelation as in rational beings. You want no 
impulsive flash, that shines but has no heat; but 
without the fire of energy you will lack the spring 
and moving power of action, the quickening spirit of 
life, and the hope of laudable achievement. The birds 
are most attractive when, flitting about, now here 
and now there, they thrill the air with their melody; 
the stars are sublimest when, like living sentinels, 
they march over the great scroll of the sky ; the 
flowers are most charming when, set with diamonds 
of dew, and crowned with a coronet of spangled 
glory, they laugh our dullness away ; the ocean gets 
majesty from its ceaseless acclaim of lash and roar, 
and the thundering cataract proclaims its character 
and mission by the hight and dash of its fall. Take 
away the eternal unrest of nature, and you strike the 
earnest, glad face of God from it, and its glory is 
gone. How still more true of you ! You will be 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. l6l 

true to yourselves, accomplish most, be most as God 
made you to be, when with glowing earnestness you 
set about to accomplish your high mission. Pity the 
young man, especially if he has the advantages of 
culture, who, with the unveiled splendors of every 
morning, does not feel his whole frame tingle with a 
thrill of life : his, a buoyancy ; his, if his heart be right 
and his conscience pure, a delight; his, a prospect 
glittering before his step like a street of gold ; his 
foot-falls chiming with his battle cry — " Excelsior !" 
Youth is nothing without its fervor, any more than 
the morning without its glow, or the spring without 
its sunshine, and its flowers, and infinite stirrings of 
fresh and exuberant life. Earnestness and perse- 
verance are its gifts; its contribution to the world is 
wholesome impulse, as that of age is caution and 
good counsel. Address yourself to every good work 
in the purity and glow of the morning, and let your 
life journey be like that of the sun, which is as a bride- 
groom going out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a. 
strong man to run a race. Never be so hampered 
with propriety as to forbid earnestness in a good 
work. It is not the diamond hilt, but the sharp, well- 
swung blade, that does execution. What signified 
the giant's form in shining brass ? The skillful arm 
and smooth stone from the brook brought him to the 
dust, and put an army to flight. Earnestness and 
perseverance have written one of the brightest pages 
in the history of human life, and over seeming impos- 
ii 



1 62 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

sibilities these have and will triumph, and bring 
success to human endeavor. 

The difficulties of life — and there are many — waste 
before earnest men ; they succeed by conquest, their 
achievements are victories. If a man could succeed 
without dint of effort, without persistency, life would 
become a dull monotony. Never stagger at difficul- 
ties, nor wait for opportunities. 

" The busy world shoves angrily aside 
The man who stands with arms a-kimbo set 
Until occasion tells him what to do ; 
And he who waits to have his task marked out, 
Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled." 

No opposition can baffle or repulse the persistent 
man ; and if his aim be right, why should he not 
wrench success out of difficulty, if need be ? 

Diogenes was desirous of becoming a disciple of 
Antisthenes; but offering himself to the cynic, he was 
refused. Diogenes still persisting, the cynic raised 
his knotty staff, and threatened to strike him if he 
did not leave. " Strike !" said Diogenes ; " you will 
not find a stick hard enough to conquer my persever- 
ance." 

Earnestness and perseverance will compensate for 
the absence of many other elements that may be used 
to advantage, and they have often saved many a 
humble life from hopeless despondency, and made it 
brilliant with success. 

One of the grandest achievements of Angelo was 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 163 

wrought when he was old, and under the pressure of 
a cruel necessity. The pope decreed that he should 
paint the vast and vaulted ceiling of the Sistine 
Chapel, at Rome, in fresco. He knew nothing of 
the art, but the pope refused to release him. The 
splendid reputation of years was at stake, but he re- 
solved to attempt the difficult task. He sent for the 
best Florentine fresco painters, learned from them the 
principles of the art, and sent them home. 

He shut himself up in the chapel, until the vast- 
ness of it was impressed upon his imagination, upon 
his soul. He dug the colors from the ground, and 
mixed them with his own hand, and then set about 
his work. It required months, but in that work the 
grand old man continued, until he made the immen- 
sity of that chapel teem with life. The cultivated 
Castelar says of it — " How wonderful is each of these 
figures ! One cannot comprehend how the poor 
genius of man has accomplished so much. I have 
seen artists in mute contemplation before these 
frescoes, let fall their arms in astonishment, and 
shake their heads in desperation, as if saying — 
' Never can we copy this ! ' " 

But one other achievement of the great master 
may be placed by the side of this, and that is the 
dome of St. Peter's, stretching up into the azure of 
the heavens, " as the crown of the spirit, as the tiara 
of the world." 

There was the force of a mighty genius in that 



164 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

effort, but more than all, it was the triumph of an 
earnest, persistent soul. Would you succeed, my 
young friend ? Then, be sure you are right, and 
throw all the energy of your soul into everything 
that is worthy. I would I could inspire you with 
the glad fervor and holy earnestness symbolized by 
the angel in the apocalypse, flying through the 
heavens having the everlasting Gospel to preach to 
all nations, then, whatever the difficulties in the way, 
success I am sure would crown your life. 

I mention as a third element of success in life — 
Civility. 

It may be thought superfluous to confer upon such 
an element the dignity of such special notice ; but 
good-breeding or manners are really so much of a 
man's personality, and effect his relationship so much, 
that I think it of great importance, and most worthy 
of a place in these friendly counsels to young men. 
The Holy Ghost has apprehended a true element of 
successful living when he charges men to " be cour- 
teous." Politeness is not a grace, but an excellence, 
and to endure the absence of it in any man requires 
very much grace. Many men blot their character, 
and put an incessant rasping* into their lives, that 
makes success difficult, by unseemly manners. The 
disposition and training may be faulty, but no man 
has any right to pour the acid of a crabbed nature on 
the more refined sensibilities of another. 

The success of life is very much identified with, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN*. 1 65 

and much affected by, mutual relationship ; and if we 
draw the rough saw of a gruff manner, and an ugly- 
temper over these, we hurt men in a way that re- 
bounds to our own greatest harm. If a man has a 
bad temper, and a violent harsh tongue, let him cage 
the one, and tie the other, until both are conquered. 
I have seen men, young men, who were so wise in 
their own conceit, and so offensive in their selfishness, 
that they seemed to pride themselves in their want of 
civility. To a simple question of an illiterate toiling 
man they had no answer, and to one of a man or lady 
better dressed, their reply was curt, and saucy, and 
ungentlemanly. Such men are unfit for any respon- 
sible position, and when they become known, men 
shun tUem, and not unfrequently they despise them. 
A truly great man, a really noble nature, will not be 
wanting in all the elements of a gentleman, and I can 
assure you, young men, it will have very much to do 
with your success. I do not mean by civility any- 
thing affected, nothing superficial and vain, not the 
pompousness of the fop, nor the affectation of the 
hypocrite ; I mean that care and gentility of manner, 
that consideration for the feelings and wishes of the 
humblest when brought into right relations with 
them, that disposition to be the servant of all, to ac- 
commodate the poorest, that genuine courtesy which 
often necessitates some self-denial, but is rooted in 
the noblest benevolence, and always is the measure 
of the man. The apostle has given the character of a 



1 66 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

true gentleman in these words, " In honor preferring 
one another," and no man loses, save much of 
obstinate self, but always gains by such a course. 

When Zachariah Fox, the great merchant of Liver- 
pool, was asked by what means he contrived to 
realize so large a fortune, he replied — " Friend, by 
one article alone, in which thou mayest deal too, if 
thou pleasest — -civility." One of the first governors 
of Virginia was conversing with a merchant in the 
street, when a negro slave saluted him. He politely 
returned the salutation, when the merchant asked, 
" How ! does your excellency condescend to bow to 
a slave ? " " To be sure," the governor replied ; " I 
should be very sorry that a slave should show him- 
self more civil than I." I care but little at^out the 
artificial rules of " etiquette ;" they often have very 
little true politeness, and sometimes but little self- 
respect, in them; but in our common every-day rela- 
tions with men, in our mingling with society as toilers 
in our various spheres, we should be most careful of 
our manners. A man may have a dignified place, 
but if he is snarly, and cold, and independent, the 
place has all the dignity and he has none. " It has 
been said that men succeed in life as much by their , 
temper as by their talents." Kindly, courteous 
manners in any sphere in life, are sunshine in it; they 
possess a charm that wins men, and will write your 
names on the tender tablet of the human heart ; but 
be gruff and uncivil, and you will throw yourself out 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 67 

of the sphere of human sympathy, and of human 
patronage; and if you succeed in a measure, it will be 
owing to other causes and not to any kindly benev- 
olence of your own. 

Politeness, kindness, a disposition to serve the low- 
liest, costs nothing, and make* a man like a bed of 
flowers, in the home, in the office, behind the 
counter, on the highway, everywhere. Young 
gentlemen, cultivate the faculty of being stern with- 
out being savage ; determined without being cruel ; 
dignified without being impudent ; sober and silent 
without being selfish ; always consistent without 
being harsh. Acquire a warm side for humanity, 
and covet the honest friendship of all worthy men, 
no matter how humble. If you wish to be happy 
and helped in your work, be considerate of your 
manners, and what is pleasing to others will be only 
beneficial to yourself. 

" Manners are not idle, but the fruit 
Of noble nature and of loyal mind." 

Good manners are the shadows of beautiful vir- 
tues ; but if such refinement be wanting, your very 
virtues will offend. Never forget that God's law of 
exaltation among men, is the abasement of self, and 
" with malice toward none, and charity for all," you 
will find in kindly civility an element that will en- 
noble your nature, and help you to true success in 
life. 



1 68 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Another element which you will find greatly con- 
ducive to your success in life is a commendable 
degree of Intelligence. I do not mean that you will 
need to be learned, accurate scholars, familiar with 
the profound things of philosophy and science in 
order to be true men and successful in life. Learning 
properly consecrated is power, but a man who is 
nothing but head is a monster. 

The noblest elements of character may, and often 
do exist, where there is no claim to erudition, or great 
intellectual grasp. 

Herbert says — " A handful of good life is worth a 
bushel of learning." Some one in Sir Walter Scott's 
hearing lauded mental gifts and attainments as noble, 
and to be coveted above all things else, to which he 
replied, " God help us ! what a poor world this would 
be if that were the true doctrine ! I have read books 
enough, and observed and conversed with enough of 
eminent and splendidly-cultured minds, too, in my 
time ; but I assure you that I have heard higher sen- 
timents from the lips of poor uneducated men and 
women, when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle 
heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking 
their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot 
of friends and neighbors, than I ever yet met with 
out of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and 
respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have 
taught ourselves to consider everything as moon- 
shine, compared with the education of the heart." 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 69 

What is needed, is not to despise intellectual culture, 
but to give it its right place and prominence . 

There is a general information, a mental order and 
vigor, which every young man should acquire, and 
which will greatly promote his usefulness in every 
right sphere. Ignorance is not a virtue, neither is it 
an innocent infirmity; and no man is true to himself, 
or to his mission, who tolerates it. 

It is a great mistake to suppose that only certain 
classes of men are better for beingr intelligent. The 
humblest toil will be dignified, better done, and pro- 
ductive of far greater results, where intelligence 
guides the hands employed. 

No matter what your calling, though it be digging 
in the street, acquire all the knowledge you can , and 
you will lighten your toil, and come into the condi- 
tions of promotion. This thought sustains a vital 
relation to the whole scope of civilization. The 
material side of human progress is largely involved in 
it. And the time is rapidly coming when the de- 
mand in all the noble spheres of life will be for men 
of good solid education. Not visionary theorists, 
not metaphysical speculators, not men who ape to be 
profound and whose knowledge is like an old well, 
as dark as it is deep, with considerable rubbish at the 
bottom, but men whose knowledge is clear, simple, 
tangible, sustaining a relation to the work they seek 
to accomplish, and to the general good of the race, 
and the beauty and force of which, is its practical 



I/O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

wisdom. Such well-informed men as each of you 
with a little application put into each day may become, 
are the men who will hold the reins of the world's 
progress, and give an enlarged productiveness to 
human life. 

No matter what you do, whether you grasp the 
handles of the plough, or grip the mattock, or drive 
a dray, or occupy the place of a servant, or stand be- 
hind the counter, or sit in the counting-room, or 
plead at the bar, or whatever, you want education. 
It will help you, it will strike the drudgery from the 
meanest work. You only need look about you, to see 
the preference given to intelligence. 

Knowledge is not for a few who carry titles, but 
for all. There is no inconsistency in the conjunction 
of hard, rugged labor and education. When men 
everywhere are respectably educated, the world will 
get a blessing, and the progress of the nations will be 
magnified many fold. And what excuse is there for 
ignorance to-day ? What facilities for knowing, the 
sweep of the ages has brought along. There is no ex- 
cuse for ignorance in this age. With eyes, with ears, 
with persistent application, which of you who have 
quit the schools, and entered upon the active callings 
of life, may not acquire knowledge. I know there 
are young men who have little ambition for intellect- 
ual enlightenment ; they do not read, except it be 
brainless trash ; they do not observe, except it be to 
find some object that will gratify passion; they do 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 171 

not hear, except it be the empty noises that fools 
make ; they do not ask questions, except to deepen 
the darkness of their souls ; they do not mingle with 
the wise, except to thrust their folly upon better 
company than they merit; they grope in their stupid- 
ity, knowing no better than to glory in their shame. 
No door of usefulness opens to such a young man, 
and his life is a plague-spot on the face of society. 

It is a shame that any man should be ignorant, in 
a time like this, in any useful calling of life. How 
humiliating to find men in business, who know very 
little of the way in which the fabrics they handle 
every day are manufactured — what a combination of 
color and varied material they contain, and what rela- 
tion they sustain to air, and water, and heat. So in 
all professions, and trades, and callings. How' many 
a professed jurist would flush to confusion, if asked to 
define the true basis of law, or to pronounce himself 
upon the majesty of the civil code. How many a 
physician would stagger, if asked to explain the gases 
that compose the atmosphere, and the relation of the 
air to the health of the body. There is this lack 
everywhere, and there is no excuse for it. There is 
no end of books now, and whether a man has the ad- 
vantages of school and college, or not, he may know 
if he will. The great world is an academy, and the 
wasted minutes of every day, given to the acquisition 
of useful knowledge, will lift any young man, before 
he has passed the meridian of life, to a degree of in- 



172 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

telligence that will not only give him enlarged com- 
petency in his sphere, but a commanding influence 
over men. 

Get knowledge, useful knowledge ; get it wherever 
you can, never allow your vanity to conceal your 
ignorance when you have an opportunity to have the 
light struck through it; learn from anybody, how- 
ever humble, that can teach you something worth 
knowing that you do not know yourself; pick up 
spears of knowledge as you work, and make each 
day bring you some golden sheaf, gathered and 
bound by your own application and effort. 

And give to all your knowledge a moral turn, a 
spiritual tone. It will greatly enhance its value, and 
put a new beauty into it. A man who is not capable 
of pure motives, who has no loft}' desire, is cursed by 
education. I know ignorance and crime £0 together, 
but such men are full of confusion ; they are con- 
stantly betraying themselves, and their ignorance is 
often the restraint of necessity. But let a bad man be 
intelligent, and what method, and cunning, and com- 
pass, he gives to his iniquity! Such a man will now 
and then thrust himself into positions of prominence, 
and betray the most sacred trusts. The highest 
places in Church and State have more than once been 
defiled by men whose only claim was their intelli- 
gence. It is terrible to think that there may be 
splendid genius ; masterly skill in debate ; language, 
the most chaste and powerful ; wit that wins a battle 



i:?z rHrv^Hrs ?:?. vovng men :~: 

-.vi:h 3. 5e:.:er.:e 5 ::. ; 3". rb.i: :u:i ::s ■ . . :. :he 
lightning — an 3 at the same time a thoroughly evil 

/ erzrse. -.vi:h:-_: re~3r3 :; G:i ?.::i 
bi~ber er.35 ::" life 

Genius, education, without a conscience, without 
. . . . - . . - 

of humanity, is like a lamp in a graveyard, a jewel 
::: :be :\:-.?.i :■:" :.:. 35535 :; :r a : : 3 :r. :;:e ::: 
:■:" :he 3333 

Tennyson describes such a one as 

.-- sinful soul possessed of many gifts 

A r: :.:.: :? ;;.: \t .-. '. . :: £: -. \:.~ a is : 

A glorious devil, large in heart and brain, 

That did love beauty only (beauty seen 

In all varieties of mold and mind), 

And knowledge for its beauty ; or, if good, 

Se: '::.;:-■ be f~e b*.:: never :::5::::::e it :: b3.fr use?. 
Ar.b ye: rermi: rre :: 537 ±3: ... : . ;- rrreess :f 
education you should not neglect your body. The 
mind cultivated at the expense of your physical 
powers will not only shorten your life, but weaken its 
brief length. The education of the body is too little 
rhrerb:: :f Y:u ".:. be ?.mbi:i: u= :: .:e: 33:1:35 
to excel in your sphere but if you are tolerating at 
the 53333 rime be: :5 :i: :: ere 533m::.- :he frerremirr.s 
of your health, if you wilfully remain in ignorance of 
the laws that govern your physical being, you are not 
35 mreiiivenr 35 y :. verb: :: be 333 bee surress :: 
your life must be greatly hindered. 



174 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

There is very great need in men to-day for endur- 
ance. Prof. Huxley, in distributing the prizes recently 
to the students in " University College," London, 
said : " Indeed, I am much disposed to think that 
endurance is the most valuable quality of all ; for 
industry, as the desire to work hard, does not come 
to much if a feeble frame is unable to respond to the 
desire. Everybody who has had to make his way 
in the world, must know that while the occasion for 
intellectual effort of a high order is rare, it constantly 
happens that a man's future turns upon his being able 
to stand a sudden and a heavy strain upon his powers 
of endurance. * .■* * Moreover, the patience, tenacity 
and good humor, which are among the most impor- 
tant qualifications for dealing with men, are incom- 
patible with an irritable brain, a weak stomach, or a 
defective circulation. If any one of you prize-winners 
were a son of mine, and a good fairy were to offer to 
equip him according to my wishes for the battle of 
practical life, I should say : ' I do not care to trouble 
you for any more cleverness ; put in as much industry 
as you can instead ; and oh ! if you please, a broad, 
deep chest, and a stomach of whose existence he 
shall never know anything/ I should be well content 
with the prospects of a fellow so endowed." In the 
acquisition of knowledge, young men, do not forget 
that proportion of its need and application which 
your entire nature suggests. Aim to develop, not a 
part of yourself, but your whole manhood, and you 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 75 

will multiply and better employ the forces that give 
success to life. 

It remains yet for me to bring to your attention 
the necessity of Personal Piety as an element of true 
success in life. My task would be poorly done did 
I not refer with repeated emphasis to this fact. The 
test of experience is too wide-spread and too unan- 
swerable, to stand longer in controversy on a point 
like this. The record of thousands of human lives 
bears unmistakable testimony here, and there is but 
one verdict. Piety contributes to the grandest and 
most permanent success of life. It involves every 
noble virtue, and, in addition, those Christian graces 
which bring to man's direction and help divine 
resources. 

It is God's gracious ordination that we should be 
allied to him ; that we should bring every force of 
our being into harmony with his perfections and will; 
that we should work in his spirit, and to the praise 
of his glory. Whenever a human being has come 
into- right relations to God; when he has come to 
know him and to love him in his Christly interposi- 
tion, then he has recovered all the forces and faculties 
of his being to a right exercise and aim. What 
health is to the body, piety is to the mind and soul. 
It cuts off all evils, and forbids such influences as 
waste without reward. When piety becomes a gov- 
erning principle in a man, a basis of life, a genuine 
heart-experience, there comes with it a protection 



1/6 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

and a stimulus in many ways that makes life beauti- 
fully fruitful. Many a young- man has had noble 
gifts, brilliant opportunities, but the want of a fear of 
God has forbidden a worthy aim, and he has drifted 
to ruin on the shoals of recklessness and sin. Let a 
man have the fear of God in him, and he will have 
strength ; he will win the sublime victories of faith, 
and struggle hopefully for those profits of life, which 
give it immortality. No young man, if he consider 
only the best use of his powers, can afford to be irre- 
ligious. Godliness is profitable ; sin is expensive. 
And there is a horrid unnaturalness in godless youth. 
All you are, young friends, combines with God's 
revelation in summoning you to a Christian life. 
Give to God the first products of your life, and your 
life will get an impulse that will raise it to an imper- 
ishable glory. • 

" The first, the first ! oh, nought like it 
Our after years can bring, 
For summer hath no flowers so sweet 
As those of early spring." 

And what dignity piety gives to a man's work, no 
matter how humble! Put what you are doing in 
honorable relation to God ; give it a spiritual direc- 
tion ; lay the fruit of it as an offering at the feet of 
Christ, and that consecration will be to your life what 
the rich soil is to a bed of flowers. 

To one who lives thus the least becomes great, the 
homely pleasing, and the evanescent eternal. The 
highest and most profitable doing, is to do all to the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. \JJ 

glory of God, and the humblest work is grand with 
such an aim. 

"A servant with this clause 
Makes drudgery divine ; 
"Who sweeps a room as for thy laws 
Makes that and the action fine." 

I cannot tell you how vastly and permanently 
successful your lives will be if given up to Christ. 
Who can compute the issues of such excellencies as 
holy love and faith, which are nothing but a divine 
force fastening on divinity and purity, which have a 
vision to penetrate the unseen ; and hope, whose light 
blends with the excellent glory; and obedience, 
which makes man not the friend, but the honored 
son of God? Such a life is "like a tree planted by 
the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his 
season ; his leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever 
he doeth shall prosper." Young man, if you have 
not, go to Christ. In him recognize God as your 
Father, and say: "Henceforth, wilt thou not be the 
guide of my youth?" God's heart is opened to you ; 
come under the beautitudes of his love. Christ 
reaches out to you, in all your varied, difficult way, 
a pierced hand, that he may lead you on and up to 
bliss and immortality. Trust and love him, and 
begin now; and sooner can the heavens fall, than 
your life shall fail. 

" Trust him all your journey through, 
Trust him living, dying too ; 
Trust him till your feet shall be 
12 Planted on the crvstal sea." 



CHAPTER VII. 

CHARACTER. 

WHEN the twilight of David's life was darkening 
into the shadow of death, he called his son 
Solomon to his side, and addressed him in these 
words, " I go the way of all the earth ; be thou strong, 
therefore, and show thyself a man." These were 
great words, and comprehensively contain the thought 
of this chapter. How much is involved in the word 
— Man. But what a dignity and importance attaches 
to it when one is charged to put into practical exhibi- 
tion all the excellencies of a true manhood. To be a 
man is vastly more than to possess the complete out- 
ward expression. 

The artist has a subject in the contour of face and 
form, in the sparkling eye, and in the quiet mien; 
but it requires far more than flesh, and blood, and 
shapeliness, to constitute a man. A man was once 
the image of God, and what is he still but the same 
image, soiled and defaced, indeed, but endowed with 
the possibilities of entire recovery ? A man, in the 
truest, broadest sense, involves grandeur and com- 
pleteness of character, and true character is worthy 
of conjunction with divinity. He who is without 

(178) 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 79 

character may have the outward semblance, the 
speech, the stride of a man ; there will be something 
for the artist to put on the canvas, something that 
might contrast dully with the grim walls of a rogue's 
gallery ; but there is nothing of the true man there. 
It is good to be athletic, robust, and well-favored, but 
it requires more than muscle, and blood, and bone, 
and nerve, and erectness, to make a man. These 
qualities are not to be despised, but they are the 
lowest side of a human being ; they mingle with his 
corruption, and if this is all a man can boast, let him 
remember that the beasts of burden have a similar 
endowment. To be a man is to possess and exhibit 
such elements as will declare rational and moral 
superiority, and as will make man a — - 

" Distinguished link in being's endless chain ! 
Midway from nothing to the Deity ! " 

We do not want in these times for caricatures of 
men, ghosts of men, sordidly, knavishly, susceptible 
men ; but there is a loud call for noble, upright, true 
men — 

" Men who can stand before a demagogue, 

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking 
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 
In public duty, and in private thinking." 

* " Quit you like men " — says the apostle. In the 
original the reading is, " be men." I trust my young 
friends, you have an aim, and that you are putting 



l8o LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

forth all right effort to attain to the compass and 
dignity of men — grasping the word and the thought 
of it as it is in the mind of God. From Jehovah's 
lips first fell the word that he means shall pronounce 
your distinction and glory. In the presence of other 
persons of the Godhead — it may be in the hearing of 
startled angels — " God said, Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness." The recovery of that sub- 
lime distinction, and the scope of a true manhood, 
we are pleased to call character. 

And now let us consider it more in detail. A 
varied signification is given to the word. It is some- 
times used to express a single distinguishing trait of 
a man's nature or life. Sometimes a single element 
of a man's life predominates so far over all others as 
to become a controlling force, the sum of his char- 
acter, the standard and measure of it. But we mean 
by it the highest and noblest expression of a man's 
nature. Character is the best force of life wisely and 
justly appropriated. It is the exercise of man's facul- 
ties and position with a high regard for right and truth. 

It is a conscious influence that arises from the best 
combination and direction of man's make-up, and that 
touches and impresses men, very much as the temper 
of the wind touches and impresses them, without 
their knowing whence it comes, and that often com- 
pels them to give back a blessing, of which the bene- 
factor is as often unconscious. 

Character is not what it is often supposed to be. It 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 151 

is so often misapplied that the study of the negative 
side of it may be quite as clear a revelation of it as 
the definition of the positive. 

Some one has said man's life is " centered in the 
sphere of common duties," and we shall not find his 
true character either in his possession or gifts. 

His virtues, not his wealth nor his talents, must 
for the most part compose this jewel. Physical pro- 
portion and power is not character, nor is money, nor 
is rank, nor is brain — a moral monster may have all 
these. If a great man dies, and you are called to 
pronounce an oration upon his character, you say 
very little if you can only tell of his genius, of his 
practical wisdom, of his business tact, and of his 
faculty of accumulation; or of his scholarship and 
philosophic turn, and acuteness of thought. Such 
things may enter into a man's character, but they 
should be servants, not the life-blood of it. 

Thomas Sackville, or Lord Bathurst, was lord high 
treasurer under Elizabeth and James I. But when 
Archbishop Abbot paid a tribute to the memory and 
character of his departed friend, he did not dwell 
upon his statesmanship, nor upon his genius as a 
poet, but he spoke of the man in the every-day 
common duties of life, and found the true portrait of 
his character there, and gave it to the world in words 
like these : " How many rare things were in him ! 
Who more loving unto his wife ? Who more kind 
unto his children ? Who more fast unto his friend? 



1 82 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Who more moderate unto his enemy ? Who more 
true to his word ?" 

When Washington Irving visited Sir Walter Scott, 
he introduced him to many of the plain, illiterate 
common people, remarking at the time, i( I wish to 
show you some of our really excellent, plain Scotch 
people. The character of a nation is not to be learnt 
from its fine folks, its fine gentlemen and ladies ; such 
you meet everywhere, and are everywhere the same." 
It is possible for a flower to grow on a dung-hill, and 
so there may be much flourish and tawdry tinsel, and 
even brilliancy, and yet nothing of the staunch man- 
liness and beauty of true character. Character lies 
deeper and aims higher than that superficial exhibit 
of life which is sometimes taken for it. Emerson 
says — "Character is moral order seen through the 
medium of an individual nature. * * * * Men of 
character are the conscience of the society to which 
they belong." 

A man's character is not what he seems to be, but 
what he really is ; his character is his moral power, 
and must give shape to his life, and permanency to 
his destiny. What capital is to the merchant, char- 
acter is to a man's life ; and the one is not less 
essential in its place than the other. The longer you 
live, the greater will be the clamor in all the worthy 
spheres of life for character. The spirit of this life is 
asking as never before : What do men stand for ? of 
what sort of material are they made ? We are com- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 83 

ino; to a time when there shall be less and less in a 
man's moneyed power. The question — " How much 
is a man worth ? " has had a wide dominion ; but I 
fancy we are quite in the dawn of an age when we 
will not try to get at a man's capacity and worth by 
the extent of his wealth, the grade of his living, or 
the splendor or costliness of his equipage. More 
and more men are bound to be estimated by their 
character — we shall want to look at the moral skele- 
ton and framework of life; to search out the impulse 
that moves the man ; to know the substance of his 
soul, and, striking on it, to find out " whether he 
rings hollow, or if the music of some everlasting 
principle thrills out of him." 

Character is principle, right principle everywhere ; 
it is the power in a man that sets and keeps his entire 
nature in antagonism to evil ; it is a force that keeps 
a man's soul clean, and his conscience clear ; it gives 
health and beauty, joy and zest to life, and makes 
any man a prince among men. Be sure, young men, 
to comprehend and rightly estimate character ; open 
up your whole nature to it, and- make it a guest ; 
never let it be kept out of or driven from the house 
of your life ; and if it compel you to deny the worldly 
side of your nature, to fetter passion, to conquer 
pride, to abandon riotous living, and to whip your 
will to an ennobling loyalty, think it not dearly 
bought, but prize it in worth above rubies. 

Pity the man who has no character, and who, to 



184 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

worthy society, is as an untamed beast — a terror, a 
torture. Against him every noble avenue to useful- 
ness is closed ; the door of every respectable home is 
shut upon him ; the very heavens frown upon him ; 
he is out of order; a lawless creature, dangerous and 
powerful, by reason of the great forces he has prosti- 
tuted. Such a man has on him the mark of the 
beast, and his course may be tracked by the desola- 
tion which he leaves behind. 

But in the present constitution, we do not spring 
into character suddenly. It is a process, a sublime 
growth, and we shall only be successful in the acqui- 
sition of it when we look well to the foundation. 

Many a man's life is forever dwarfed, and his 
character always faulty, because of an attempt to rear 
it on a wrong basis. If we are sagacious in building 
our houses, why should we be careless in rearing the 
nobler citadel of character? and yet many give far 
more attention to the tenement than to the tenant. 
A man should have many things in view when he 
lays the foundation of character. If you build a 
house only for summer, it will serve you poorly. 
But men put more sense than that into house-build- 
ing. They build for all seasons, and for the accidents 
of each. So, in laying the foundations of character, 
let them be true and tried, broad and deep — for life 
has its storms — its December as well as its May — and 
nature never brought such tests to the solidity and 
worth of our dwellings as will now and then come 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 85 

out of the mystery of life, to the test of our character. 
The yacht may be very well proportioned, the paint- 
ing and gilding may be exquisite, but it was not 
made for the sea ; its base is too narrow, and its 
timbers are too weak ; a mere toy on the waters, the 
great billows hug it and lash it, and then toss its 
shattered fragments on the dancing waves. The sea- 
weed, seemingly as frail, but rooted below, endures 
far better than it. Picture of many a man's character, 
it seems to survive for awhile, but there is no broad, 
godlike principle underlying it, and it is not long 
until the foolish builder is made to confront one of 
those frequent, and often severe tests, which belong 
to life, and his illy-balanced structure sways and 
falls. Young men, I charge you, do not attempt to 
build up the fabric of character without thinking of 
the fire with which God, in his providence all about 
you, will try your work of what sort it is. Some 
men lay down a moral basis without God, and with- 
out truth, as it is impersonated in Jesus Christ, and it 
sometimes seems fair to look upon ; but the structure 
is constantly showing its lack of stability, and sooner 
or later will prove to be as a house reared on sand. 
Such a character will have some force, but the par- 
tiality and limitation of it will soon be apparent. 

Character stretches not only on through the genera- 
tions, but up into God's eternity ; it is a thing of the 
soul, and hence there is an element of immortality in 
it; and therefore to be true, and stable, and victorious, 



1 86 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

it must be established on principles which conform to 
God's rule of right, and God's estimate of life. Those 
characters are the noblest, achieve the most, stand 
the best, and endure the longest, which root down- 
ward, and tower upward most into the infinitude of 
God. Christ is the representative, the embodiment 
of every right principle, of every sublime truth, and 
no man can as much as comprehend the true -scope 
of character until he comes to know him. And 
whilst every man should take heed how he builds on 
him, there is no real excellence and permanence of 
character without the acceptance and appropriation 
of the great principles for which he stands in all 'the 
relations of life. 

Many of you are just beginning in life — your bark 
is cut loose from its moorings, and you have set sail 
on that wide sea which carries more perils in its 
bosom than you imagine ; you have commenced to 
lay the foundations of what will be after awhile the 
story of a life. The base will indicate the character 
of the structure — how it will endure, what it will be 
worth. It seems to me the momentous question 
concerning the whole marvelous enterprise, will be 
this : Will you ignore Christ? Will you give him 
no room in it, and shut your ears to the chanting of 
the angels as you go along? You may do this. 
You may build on sand, and die amid the ruins of 
your folly ; and the blackest night that will ever wrap 
its folds about you, will be the night of your forever. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 87 

But God has endowed you with so many elements of 
the noble, that I really hope better things of you. 
Now, in the formative period of your existence, give 
Christ a large place, and it will be to the fabric of 
your life what the jasper, and sapphire, and emerald, 
and amethyst, are to the foundations of the heavenly 
city. 

I am glad if you have health; if you have wealth, 
if you have accomplishments ; these will do to serve, 
but they will not do to save in a storm. You dare 
not build on them ; the foundation of your character 
must be in your soul, and your soul will be a wan- 
dering, smitten fugitive, driven and tossed, until it 
leans on Christ Come, I pray you, to a conscious 
unfolding, a building up of yourself, and lay every 
part of your nature and life-purpose on that " Rock 
of Ages," which should be chief in the fabric of every 
life, but which so many refuse to their own hurt. 
Life -building, character-making, is rapid work. It 
is going on constantly ; going on now in all of you. 
What forces are at work to put into shape, rude 
enough perhaps, the life you are to live ? It is very 
difficult to correct the foundation after the house is 
up. Unconsciously, in this very way, some of you 
are building character. What is it but the fragments 
of ruin set in order ? Will that structure stand ? 
Will it stand in the truest success here, and in the 
grandest destiny hereafter ? Show me an example ! 
I must emphasize the fact, that what a man wants in 



1 88 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

character is a solid, lasting foundation ; and when, tell 
me, shall the great principles illustrated in the nature, 
teaching, and life of Christ, perish ? I am aware that 
this kind of teaching is not very common in treatises 
that pretend to instruct young men how to live. The 
books I have read, for the most part, seem almost 
studiously to avoid Christ as the true basis and most 
important factor in all noble character. Men who 
write have an 'aversion to being thought too sermon- 
like, too religious in their utterance. Young men, I 
am more considerate for your well-being than I am 
for my fame. The foundation of your character is so 
all-important, that I should shudder to write a word 
that would lead you to slight Christ in the building 
up of your manhood. He is the perfection of life, 
and without him you may exist in the lower forms of 
being, but the true power and glory of life you will 
never attain. Soul or character-building is momen- 
tous work ; it is work for eternity ; it is work for 
others as well as for yourself — " No man liveth unto 
himself." Take heed, then, how you build. On 
what you are and do to-day will rest the work of 
to-morrow ; and so on the structure will rise, and if 
from the bottom to the top you carry up the wrong 
principles with which you started, your structure'will 
not only fall, but while it lasts it will be as a signal 
light misplaced, luring others to a similar ruin. 

But if, with Christ's name cut deep and large on 
the base, you are graving it on every stone, then are 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 89 

you building a character that no accident, or change, 
or event, shall shake down, but one that shall grow, 
and bless, and stand ; stand in the grandest achieve- 
ments of life, stand in the highest reverence of men, 
and hereafter rise majestic as a polished pillar in the 
temple of God. 

But all-important as the foundation of character is, 
the symmetry and progress of it are most worthy of 
attention. It is possible to build badly on a good 
foundation. There is a profound significance, not 
inapplicable in this connection, in these words of the 
Apostle : " Let every man take heed how he buildeth 
thereupon." There is not only a right foundation, 
but there is a right way to build upon it. The 
foundation of a house may be solid granite, but if 
the building be only hay and stubble, it will not 
long withstand the elements. So with character ; a 
man may claim to have put down a solid foundation ; 
but if, like the dark streaks you have sometimes seen 
in a block of marble, 1 he runs a vein of error or of 
vice through the structure, he has put an element of 
weakness and waste in it. The structure will not 
stand the friction of life. Character is not a unit in 
one single element, but in the combination of its ele- 
ments, as flowers make a bouquet, or stars compose 
a constellation. It is like a piece of mosaic : if one 
small part is wanting, the imperfection is great. Very 
small things are very great excellencies in architect- 
ure, and the absence of one of them is not only a 



I9O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

noticeable defect at that point, but it puts the whole 
edifice out of essential proportion. So with character; 
whilst it cannot be completed in a day, not even in a 
life time, it must be carried up on all sides ; there must 
be regard for proportion. When a man builds a 
house, he does not finish one side of it this year, and 
then another next, or omit one side altogether; he 
builds all sides at once, and in its incompleteness it is 
not without symmetry. So a man should build the 
fabric of character. A man may prune and dig 
about a plant as much as he pleases, but if he shuts 
off the sunlight and shower, it will die. Not any 
more can a true life subsist without all the elements 
of a true character. Of what avail is it to say of a 
young man that he does not lie, or swear, or drink, 
if he is dishonest, or licentious, or an infidel?' It is 
unfortunate to underestimate any excellence of being, 
and so destroy the right proportion, the beautiful 
harmony of character. 

Some men are like the moon when one edge of its 
round fullness is gone: they are awry, illy-balanced. 
The possession of one virtue will not compensate for 
the absence of another ; rather will the wanting 
excellence deface and blight the one that is. How 
many deformed characters there are; men who have 
no symmetry in their moral make-up, and whose 
want of proportion is the calamity of their lives. 
How many are victims of the fallacy that to have one 
or two good points is equal to possessing a good 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 19! 

character; it is like saying that a man's heart must be 
rich because his hand is jeweled. 

Character ought not to be viewed in points, and 
sections, and special occasions. Man is a loser if he 
must be estimated by sections. It is no compliment 
when we must come to a character as we would come 
to a pile of goods partly damaged, to pick out the 
o;ood and throw away the worthless ; it is a si^n of 
incompleteness. 

The grandeur and power of character are in its 
roundness. It may be far from perfection, but when 
you look at it you should be able to see all its parts 
in process of construction ; and out of what it is, the 
imagination should be able to behold the sublime 
thing it is going to be. Every man should be able to 
get stimulus out of the proportion with which he is 
carrying himself up to the true and complete compass 
of being. If a young man has some just conviction 
of life, and at the same time feels that with some 
virtues he has some serious defects, some passion 
secretly burning within, or some vice tightening its 
fetters upon him, how can he build character with 
any success ? As well might a man hope for health, 
though careful of the air he breathed, and the food 
he ate, while hidden within lurked some treacherous 
poison or ulcer. Find out every right element of a 
noble character, and then apply with all diligence 
every right method of construction, and carry forward 
the structure on all sides ; and however far from the 



I92 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

ideal, let your constant aim be to attain a complete 
manhood — complete in the possession of all its parts 
now, and by and by the full-rounded image without 
spot or wrinkle. This will require the cultivation 
and right direction of all your faculties and forces ; 
for what part of a man does not enter into the forma- 
tion of his character ? And here you will not fail to 
get inspiration at thought of the wonderful compass 
of character. What possibilities of growth there are 
in a character that is building on all sides and 
upward ! 

There is a wise ordination in the constant, but 
gradual, expansion of character. The elm does not 
get its symmetry, nor the oak its breadth and rugged- 
ness, in a night; nor does the consummation of 
character come but by degrees. Life always has a 
mission -ahead of itself. " My time is not yet come," 
said Christ, and he was only ready when it did come. 
Man only can achieve in proportion to the weight of 
his character, and if he is growing he will be ready 
for the mission of to-morrow, not to-day, but when 
the morrow comes. " The rocket splutters out all 
its empty secrets at once ; the stars have not told all 
their story yet." It is better that man be as the ever- 
unfolding stars. Oh ! there is something sublime in 
the march of character. With the right foundation, 
with the right process of building, what a glorious 
progress stretches before every young man ! 

You have life, but if you set about to build a right 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 93 

character, you will get more life. Your Maker has 
arranged not only that you might have life, but that 
you might have it more abundantly. Life is suscep- 
tible of immense enlargement ; there is room in it for 
the broadest and deepest character, and as your 
character expands, you will find your faculties taking 
hold where they never did before; you will think, 
and feel, and act, as you never did before, and life 
will swell into a compass as sublime as it is vast. 
Money will enlarge life for some, physical power will 
enlarge it for others, intensity, industry, station, intel- 
lect for others ; but nothing gives such width, and 
depth, and majesty to life, as character. Character 
allies a man to the great immortal movements of 
earth ; to the noblest spirit, thought, and aims of 
men ; to God himself. Let a man acquire true char- 
acter, and his sense of justice, and of truth, and of 
love, and of faith, and of self-denial, everything noble 
in him, will find a use they never had before; and 
what is this but the enlargement of life — the progress 
of character ? A superficial character, a character 
that has no depth, nor solidity, nor stiffness, nor round- 
ness in it, dwarfs a man's life, and makes it consist of 
things he can count, eat, and drink, and wear. What 
is character, what is life, without noble thought, holy 
affection, moral and divine impulses and aspirations 
that open it up, as the light blushes the darkness out 
of the forest, and discloses its beauty ? A life and 
character without these is like the sun-parched desert 



194 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

without water, or the waste wilderness without a 
flower. Both are thin and unsightly, shriveled like a 
miser's face, without beauty or music. The growing, 
right-proportioned character must have both breadth 
and depth, and, if possible, more of depth than 
breadth. Let a man grow in skill, in intellect, in 
wealth, in physical endurance; but no man is growing 
as he ought in character unless he feels the roots of 
his moral being taking a deeper hold every day; 
unless he finds the branches of his higher nature 
stretching constantly over a wider sphere; his justice, 
his purity, his truth, his sympathy, his benevolence 
becoming more and more intense, and finding a con- 
stantly widening scope for their exercise — this, and 
this only, is the expansion of character, the true 
progress of life. And who of you may not have 
this ? Perhaps few of you will succeed in making a 
fortune, still fewer in becoming learned, and great; 
but the poorest, the most unlearned of you, may 
acquire a noble character. For character there is no 
substitute. Get all of good wherever you can, and as 
you can ; and then let the sunlight of a noble charac- 
ter fall on these external helps, and it will be to them 
as the river's overflow to the worn field. You can 
get along without classical lore, without the " magic 
of chemistry," without familiarity with the book of 
the heavens, without the fame of the great, or the 
money of the rich, but you cannot do without charac- 
ter. Get character, rightly rooted, wisely built, and 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 95 

you will know nothing of that insupportableness of 
life which is the burden and crime of so many to-day. 
Be not, young men, like some wheat fields you have 
seen, with here and there a stock, a disappointment 
and loss to the husbandman. Be full, be complete, 
grow in every part; let life be force to you, not 
diminishing, but in your moral growth becoming 
vaster and vaster, and always golden with some 
glorious harvest. 

"'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, 
O life, not death, for which we pant ; 
More life, and fuller, that we want." 

And in all, I charge you again, remember him 
whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, but who 
is the noblest guest of the human heart, and the sub- 
limest and mightiest force of a human character and 
life. 

And now let me direct attention to some of the 
elements of character in the truest and broadest 
sphere of living. Character is almost as multiform in 
its parts as it is in the means of its formation. There 
are some elements of it, however, which are more 
prominent than others, and which have a greater 
relative importance. We do well to give them the 
distinction they merit, for they not only form the 
best endowment of character, but they help to enlarge 
and maintain it. A well-built character must have a 
large degree of sympathy and affection in it. We are 



I90 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

very dependent upon one another. The members of 
the human body are mutual helpers. And in society, 
in humanity, the same dependence one upon another 
obtains. We are a chain, not separate links ; we 
belong to one another, and only by sympathetic 
co-operation can we work out of life the grand 
results it contains. We differ widely in gifts ; one 
man possesses this faculty, and another that, and 
they occupy different places ; but God has given to 
every man a heart, and a bond of sympathy should 
bind us to the race. It may cut the pride of some to 
feel that they are actually dependent upon the com- 
monest servant; but it is good to have pride cut, and 
God has ordained that no man should carry his 
sovereignty of gifts or place so high as to isolate him 
from his fellow-men, only uttering himself to pro- 
nounce a decree. A man may feign independence, he 
may isolate himself ; but he only thereby shows his 
selfishness, and takes the measure of his narrow 
character. The toiler in the street, the child in the 
gutter, the poor suffering wretch in the garret — all 
these, as much as the great, and royal, and titled, 
have to do with the make-up and mysterious total of 
the thing we call human life. 

A grand and noble character stops to consider 
circumstances ; it looks at men as they might have 
been if they had been better born and reared ; it is apt 
to see the glitter of pure gold down under the 
rubbish, and it goes out in sympathy, and feels its 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 97 

dependence, from the very blessing it gets from so 
unlooked for a source. Neither the rain nor sunshine 
are selfish; they fall on the just and unjust. So, a 
true character has a heart that beats up against the 
race ; and under this universal love, often springing, 
not out of what man is, but out of what he might 
and would be if all his parts were set in order, how a 
man's character broadens, how it accumulates force, 
and now and then becomes a strong hand put down 
to lift the fallen up. 

Young men, it is not greatness to scorn the lowest, 
to assume independence, or to pride in isolation. 
The character of Christ got much of its majesty from 
his profound sympathy with the lowly and wretched; 
he must even pray for his murderers. As flowers 
expand in the sunshine, so character discloses itself 
under the genial radiance of trustful affection. Labor, 
young gentlemen, in the building of your character, 
to permeate it with a large, consistent sympathy ; for 
the purest ends, cultivate and exercise a noble affec- 
tion, and you will bring the best of yourself very 
near to God, for " God is love." A noble character 
has reverence. There are men and things that are 
entitled to special respect ; there are places where a 
true man will walk softly. And no matter where he 
be, whether in the isles of the forest, on the brow of 
the mountain, or on the rolling sea, or in the conse- 
crated temple, if the name and thought of God thrills 
into his soul, the feeline of reverence will not fail to 



I90 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

hush him into awe. Smiles says : " The possession 
of this quality marks the noblest and highest type of 
manhood and womanhood : reverence for things con- 
secrated by the homage of generations — for high 
objects, pure thoughts, and noble aims — for the great 
men of former times, and the high-minded workers 
among our contemporaries. Without reverence there 
can be no trust, no faith, no confidence, either in man 
or God ; neither social peace nor social progress. 
For reverence is but another name for religion, which 
binds men to each other, and all to God." 

" Francis de Medicis never spoke to Michael 
Angelo without uncovering, and Julius III. made 
him sit by his side while a dozen cardinals were 
standing. Charles V. made way for Titian, and one 
day, when the brush dropped from the painter's hand, 
Charles stooped and picked it up, saying: 'You 
deserve to be served by an emperor.' " These things 
are not to be done for the sake of doing them, nor for 
any selfish end; in such a case they would be the 
meanest cant, but they are to appear as the spontan- 
eous expression of a noble character. I do not mean 
by reverence anything snobbish or truckling, nor do 
I mean that adoration which is only due to God, but 
I mean that manliness of nature that is violated un- 
less it be permitted to pay that respect to great worth 
and ability in others which they deserve. That nature 
is small and mean that finds pleasure in the disappoint- 
ment, and annovance at the success, of others. Some 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 1 99 

persons can never forgive others for doing a thing 
better than they can do it. 

A character without reverence is coarse, and not 
capable of anything great or magnanimous. Neither 
envy nor jealousy can survive where there is a high 
degree of reverence ; and where there is such a rever- 
ence there will be a magnanimity of character that is 
sublime. 

" No quality," says Johnston, "will get a man 
more friends than a sincere admiration of the qualities 
of others." Whenever you find it in your spirit and 
nature to heartily rejoice at the thing well done and 
well said by another, which you have the credit of 
doing and saying well yourself, then you have the 
reverence of a noble character, and one of the strong- 
est points in it. This was regarded as one of the 
most distinguishing features of the sublime character 
of Prince Albert. His biographer says : " He had 
the greatest delight in any body else saying a fine 
saying, or doing a great deed. * * * He delighted 
in humanity doing well on any occasion and in any 
manner." How beautiful it is when a man can recog- 
nize worth and ability in others, though it put him in 
the shade. But trying to account for the superior 
excellence and doing of others, by a reference to 
advantages and circumstances superior to your own, 
only that you may gratify your own envy, is irrever- 
ent, and an ignoble trait in any character. 

Another very essential element is decision. Many 



200 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

an otherwise excellent character is rendered pitiable 
by want of decision. A character that has no posi- 
tiveness, no well-defined order in its thought, or feel- 
ing, or action, no distinctiveness and permanency of 
conviction, no reputation for solid principle, is entirely 
unreliable. 

There are some men who cannot say, No ! when 
no is the word to be said ; they are " easy acquies- 
cence " men ; now they are one thing, and now they 
are something else ; driven and tossed by every wind, 
they are wavering as the fretting billows of the sea. 
Young gentleman, if you would ever accomplish any- 
thing good or great, build your character where and 
as you should, then put your will into it. Woe to 
.the character that lacks the personal power, the 
mightiest sovereignty of the man. And yet there are 
such ; men who in religion and in every other sphere 
are vacillating, whose weakness and self-interest con- 
trol them, and upon whom you cannot depend. 
When Mr. Gladstone spoke in honor of the memory 
of Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons, he 
said, " I am convinced that it was the force of will, a 
sense of duty, and a determination not to give in, that 
enabled him to make himself a model for all of us 
who yet remain and follow him, with feeble and un- 
equal step, in the discharge of our duties." He had 
decision of character. 

Let your character be right, and then carry it, my 
young friends, into everything, and into every place, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 201 

and let there be no change except it be the change 
that comes from its broadening and rising more and 
more into the regions of right and truth. Decision 
gives force to character, and this is the want of many. 
They have no force, no bold, radical points ; they are 
like a flat surface — they make no impression on the 
world. There is a monotony in the plain, but there 
is always something grand and interesting in the 
bold, rugged mountain, lifting its cliffs sky-ward. So 
ought a man's character be. Its elements should 
come out in such boldness as to impress men. He 
should be known not so much by his name and face, 
as by the prominent right features of his character. 
Such a man will command men without aiming to do 
it, and on all questions of right and duty it will be 
unnecessary to interview him to know where he 
stands. He has decision, force of character. This 
positiveness of character is well indicated by this in- 
scription cut on the tomb of Baron Stein : 

" His nay was nay, without recall ; 

His yea was yea, and powerful all ; 
He gave his yea with careful heed, 
His thoughts and words were well agreed ; 

His word, his bond and seal." 

I need hardly add that there is no such thing as 
noble character without conscience and purity. Con- 
science is the soul of character, and purity is the 
very sheen of its beauty. A character without con- 
science, without any pure impulse, is a rational force 
let loose in disorder. 



202 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUxNG MEN. 

Beware of this weakness and crime. In every ex- 
pression of your manhood be conscientious, and let 
the lustre of your life get its hue and glow from him, 
who was holy, harmless, and undefiled. Bend your 
vision on him whom no man could convince of sin, 
and keep it there until the reflection of that radiant 
presence burns itself on your soul, and your character 
is seen in the light of it, as tree-tops are seen leaning 
against the horizon in the golden glow of the setting 
sun. 

Acquire such a character, young men, and then 
will you reap the good of life, and your memory will 
be enshrined in an immortality that an angel might 
covet. Character cannot die. Men live, not in their 
outward appearance, not in the houses they build 
nor in the places they fill, but in their deeds, their in- 
fluence, their conscious being and destiny. Your 
best friend is dead. No, the form only has disap- 
peared. The affection of his heart, the music of his 
voice, the fibre of his thought, the influence of his 
conduct upon you, these still live ; in other words, all 
that made him the noble friend and man he was, 
lives, and will live forever ; even now he — 

" Comes to your side in the twilight dim, 
When the spirit's eye only sees." 

Even now, with mystic mien and hallowing voice, 
he takes part in the counsels of your life. Oh, there 
is something grand and all-inspiring in the acquisi- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 203 

tion of a character that lifts a man up into the beati- 
tudes of the present life, that makes him a cheerful 
presence, an object of blessing in the community in 
which he lives, and afterwards causes his name to 
ring down through the generations, a thrilling, inspir- 
ing, helping music to all who hear it. And such 
may each of you be, my young friends. You may 
get health and lose it; you may get wealth and lose 
it ; but get character, character that will make you 
" a spectacle to the angels," the friend of God, and a 
benefactor to the race, and that will endure, and com- 
pensate for all losses. When Stephen of Colonna fell 
into the hands of his enemies, they mockingly asked 
him — " Where is your fortress ? " " Here ! " was his 
bold reply, placing his hand upon his heart. His 
character did not fail him in time of extremity, and 
what was all else beside this ? Starting out in the 
great conflict of life, I shall have all hope for you if 
you carry the force of a true and noble character into, 
the struggle. 

The elements that compose that never lost a battle ; 
but if you go regardless of character, then you must 
go to infamy and dust, a poor return for the gift of 
life, and the possibilities of immortality. 

Character determines human destiny. It is true 
here. A train of cars contains a variety of passengers. 
One is a maniac, guarded as you guard a beast of 
prey ; his mind, like a ship stripped of mast and 
rudder, is beating against a dark, desolate coast, from 



204 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

which can come no help. He is carried to an asylum, 
to waste amid years of horrid gloom. His character 
may have struck his reason from its throne. 

Another is a prisoner. The cold iron clasps his 
wrists. He shall look at the stars of night hereafter 
through the bars of his confinement, and realize, per- 
haps, that a night without stars envelopes his soul. 
His character has brought forth ; it has attained its 
destiny. 

Another is a merchant, a statesman, a humble 
toiler, a father, an author, a Christian. He hastens to 
a happy home, to look, it may be, on the fruit of his 
industry, or to pursue his worthy work, or to visit 
his friends, or to worship his God. His character has 
had very much to do with the prosperity, and happi- 
ness, and respectability, blooming all about him. It 
is true in the world to come. Here one steps off 
the mortal shore, who has had no faith, no Christian 
love, no holy aim. Heaven is quiet at his exit. 
He would be without God here, he is without him 
there. His character cannot be one thing, and his 
destiny another. As soon look for grapes 'on thorns, 
and figs on thistles. Here is another. The an- 
nouncement of his death is made, and the whole com- 
munity mourns; but the angels of heaven come down 
to the pearly gates, and shout loud and sweet—" Well 
done " — " Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." In 
your character is the image of your eternity, as the 
likeness of the parent is in the face of the child. For 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 205 

this world and the next — what so seriously important 
as a man's character ? 

You were made for far more, and God calls you 
to far more, than I have been able to tell you in these 
words. The brightest prospect I have denned, and 
the brightest hopes I have raised, are dim ; the barest 
outline of that vision which is yet hidden in the infin- 
itude of God, and which opens to the soul of those 
who rise as they advance, and who shall at last know 
as they are now known by those superior intelligen- 
ces — the just made perfect, who in . planting their 
character on Christ here, and rearing it under the 
glow of his cross, have long since learned that they 
built wiser and better than they knew. That thought, 
that unutterable experience, is your inspiration, and 
may be made to blend with the lustre of your best 
hopes. 

" Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man. 
And keep the charge of the Lord ihy God, to walk 
in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his command- 
ments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is 
written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper 
in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest 
thyself." 

" The purest treasure mortal times afford 
Is spotless reputation ; that away, 
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DUTY. 

PROF. WILSON, of Edinburgh University, a man 
of large heart and noble character, shortly before 
his death remarked, " The word duty seems to me 
the biggest word in the world, and it is uppermost in 
all my serious thoughts." 

It has a wide scope, and I shall speak of it as the 
universal obligation of man, having reference to all his 
faculties and involving all his relationships. Duty is 
nothing but human life manifested wisely and well. 
And no matter where it is performed, the basis and 
obligation of it have a high origin. 

The New Testament was not written without regard 
to human life as it is, and as it is to be wrought out 
here. It comprehends its every part, and provides a 
law of duty as wide as human want and human ability. 

From the Sermon on the Mount, and from the 
writings of the great Apostle, it would be easy to 
bring a cluster of Scriptures, as rich as the grapes the 
spies brought from Eshcol, underlying and permeating 
the whole sphere of man's duty. 

Men think little of God's Word in this connection, 

but the sublimest and fullest law of duty you will 

(206) 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2CJ 

find in the Bible. No form, no obligation, no human 
life, is overlooked. Human pride and human selfish- 
ness constantly degrade and put life into unjust limi- 
tations, or accord it an unrighteous supremacy, but 
the Word of God dignifies it in its humblest sphere, 
and lifts every man in the discharge of his meanest 
duty into a sense of true manhood. 

Duty is so much of life, and so interweaves with 
human relationship, and is so essential in the develop- 
ment of man's nature, that we must not be content 
with any narrow view of it, and should scorn any 
other basis of it than that one, so broad and deep, 
found in God's Word. 

God has given us in the sacred Scriptures the 
truest moral science, and the best political economy, 
the world possesses. It is characteristic of the Bible 
to give dignity to the very humblest sphere of right 
living, and it builds up the fabric of human relation- 
ship, not on laws of exchange, not on market values 
or profits, not on social rank or distinction, not on 
any selfish principle, but on the nobler elements of 
justice, equity, love, and self-sacrifice. 

Standing at the gates of human life, the angel of 
God's Word looks out upon the uneven ways of men 
and cries — " As ye would that men should do to you, 
do ye also to them." " Render to all their dues ; 
tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to whom cus- 
tom ; fear to whom fear ; honor to whom honor. Owe 
no man anything, but to love one another." 



208 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MLN*. 

The time has come when we should emphasize the 
fact that all duty should have a moral basis, that there 
is but one true principle upon which it can rest, if men 
would get justice, life, dignity and worth, and God 
honor out of it, and that is the principle of right- 
eousness. 

There is nothing that needs dethronement so much 
among men as that selfishness which holds such sway 
in all relations, and on which the very stars cast a 
frown, and God hurls bolts of indignation. I have 
spoken of character : duty is the crown of it. 

" Duty," says Mrs. Jameson, " is the cement which 
binds the whole moral edifice together ; without 
which, all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, 
love itself, can have no permanence ; but all the 
fabric of existence crumbles away from under us, and 
leaves us at last sitting in the midst of ruin, astonished 
at our own desolation." 

Duty — not the place a man fills, but how he fills it, 
is vitally associated with everything noble in him. 

In that his character must come out as the picture 
is revealed in the light, and that will constitute the 
pedestal on which must rest the statue of his im- 
mortality. If you have any true apprehension of 
yourselves, young gentlemen, and of your noble pos- 
sibilities, you are not here to do what the virus of a 
deadly plague does, nor any more to be well dressed 
things, only to be looked at as one looks at the stony 
features of a human image in a park or studio. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUXG MEN. 2O9 

You are here to do your duty. You are depend- 
ent creatures, however independent you may feel ; 
your whole organism indicates that you were made 
to serve, and duty is service wrought in right and 
justice. 

Jesus Christ, the great humanity, came not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister, and in that service 
he not only responded to a great need in us, but to 
the high and holy elements of his great nature. To 
everything noble and beautiful is given the function 
of ministering apart from itself. The flowers minister 
to us — whence their beauty or use, but for the color and. 
fragrance they give away? — so do the happy stars, 
so does the crystal water, whether it drops in pearls 
from the sky, bubbles in the spring, rolls or roars in 
the sea, or dances with silvery sheen over the rocky 
cheeks of the mountain. The angels of God are only 
servants, and their brilliant life is one of noble duty. 

" The unceasing thought that fans the ambrosial 
air of that cloudless land everywhere with its wing 
of sunset, is the thought of ministering, not of being 
ministered unto." I would have the influence of that 
kind of life fall upon you from heaven, as the dew 
and sunlight drop into the open cup of the flower; 
and like nature, you will be the better and brighter 
for it. 

I would have you apprehend life as a grand oppor- 
tunity to do your duty, and in it, while you serve 
others, give growth, and power, and noble destiny, to 
14 



2IO LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

the manhood of which you are capable. There is a 
strong disposition in men to be ministered unto, with- 
out ministering in turn. It is not an evidence of a 
man's shrewdness, but a reproach upon his noblest 
being. It is the evil which puts a false face on duty 
in many relations to-day, and makes the growth of 
men very slow. In business, in politics, and in other 
spheres, men too generally have uppermost in their 
minds what they can get, not what they can give. 
The motive robs the duty of its dignity, and makes 
the man its slave, rather than its sovereign. After 
such a method a man may get wealth, and empty 
fame, and position, but not manhood. A true, a 
noble, a really profitable apprehension of duty will 
lead a man, not simply to give his time, and strength, 
and skill, but himself away in its faithful discharge. 
And who loses his life in that way, is sure to save it. 
Learn at the very beginning that the highest sense, 
and the truest performance of duty in any worthy 
sphere, no matter how low it may be in the eyes of 
men, involves self-denial, and challenges the noblest 
elements of a man's nature. But more of this when 
I come to speak of the spirit of duty. 

There are diversities of gifts, and God has re- 
sponded to this feature in man's nature, in the wide 
and varied range given to duty. There are duties 
which we all owe to God and man, but the much we 
have in common does not interfere, but greatly help 
us in that which we have in particular. It is a wise 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 211 

ordination of God, that every man has endowment 
for some particular worthy calling, into which he may 
carry the temper of a fidelity that will give him depth 
of soul, and make his life a blessing. One man may 
be the complement of another. All gifts and all 
graces do not centre in one human being, any more 
than all the light centres in one star. It is the duty of 
some to think, of others to plan, of others to execute 
Some must speak, others must listen. Some live as 
under a glass shade — they know nothing of " rough- 
ing it ; " others are vessels in common wear, and 
turn from their work soiled and unsightly : these 
cannot change places ; they are all needed, and the 
world is happier and better because it is so ; the 
scope of human duty takes every one of these in, and 
wherever God has placed you, though it only be to 
serve as did the little maid the wife of Naaman, 
your mission is not to fall out with your place, but 
do your duty in it, remembering that it is not the 
particular work you are engaged in that is to develop 
and reward you, but the manner in which you do it. 
It was no credit to Judas that he was a disciple ; it was 
no benefit to him, he knew no duty in it, he served 
himself, not his Lord, and his position did not save 
him the reward he merited. 

Nor on the other hand, will the humblest place 
that is right prevent any man from attaining the 
greater excellence, if he makes his service greater, 
himself greater, than the sphere in which he toils. 



2 I 2 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. .. 

If what a man does becomes in his thought and pur- 
pose, noble, manly duty, then he is not to be measured 
by the character of his work, but by the compass of 
his fidelity. In the wide scope of callings, then, un- 
derstand that for a man to be really great and noble, a 
credit to his kind, it is not necessary that he hold 
some lofty position, but that he be true to himself, and 
to others, in the very place Providence has put him. 
There is great progress in duty, and so the pupil has 
more than once become the teacher, and the clerk 
the proprietor, and the constituent the incumbent ; 
and that principle runs through all the relations of 
life, and roots itself in duty. So the meanest right 
duty, or the lowest sphere in any great enterprise, is 
not to be despised, but to be made an opportunity for 
faithful service. 

Young man, unless in the very beginning you 
make it your lofty aim to do your duty everywhere, 
you may have some excellence, but, like the diamond 
with a flaw in it, there will be a serious defect in your 
character. You cannot afford to treat a subject like 
this with indifference, for you cannot separate your 
life, or one single good of life, from duty. I ask you, 
then, to give a place in your thoughts to the duties 
you owe to your fellow men, to yourself, and to God. 

Society has been in no small commotion in the few 
last years. In our own, and in other countries, it has 
taken on more than once a threatening aspect. Vio- 
lence has made a fire-brand, a deadly weapon out 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2 I 3 

of the hands of men, and the majesty of law has been 
trampled into the dust; and very largely the mon- 
strous evil may be traced to indifference to, and in 
many instances to a total disregard of duty. 

It is probable that some of you have gotten so far 
on, or will have attained to a position before long, 
when you will sustain the relation of overseer or pro- 
prietor over others. In such a case you will be inad- 
equate to the responsibility of your place, unless you 
remember that the duty is not all on one side. 

I have no sympathy with communism or socialism, 
or with any system that strikes at the very foundation 
of all duty and all correct relationship between man 
and man ; but I feel it most important to assure you 
that the evils that have thrust the labor question upon 
the public mind, and have made it one of the most 
serious agitations of the times, are not all to be traced 
to the working classes. I enter not into any discus- 
sion of the- varied merits of this question at present, 
but I would remind you that if others serve you in 
any of the callings of life, you owe them duties as 
employers of their time and skill, other than simply 
rendering them a fair equivalent for the work they 
perform. You are not to forget that they are men, 
that they are men of feeling, often of the noblest in- 
stincts, and sometimes of an intellectual grasp and 
skill of achievement which you cannot boast yourself, 
and that in moral right there is no reason why there 
should be such a social breach between vou as to 



214 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

make them feel the chill of a depressing isolation. A 
noble-minded man will not do less but more for you, 
when he feels that he has a place in your confidence, 
and that you do not recognize him for what he does, 
so much as for what he is. If he is worthy, though 
you be very rich, and he be very poor, he has a right 
to your social regard, and to your highest moral con- 
sideration, and though he may perform his part well, 
you will not do your duty unless you so respect him. 
It is a fact, and a cruel, wicked wrong, that some 
men, whom fortune has favored, show their horses 
more respect and kindness than they do the immortal 
beings in their employ. Who, by any claim of cus- 
tom, or law of social life, despises man because of his 
inferiority of place, despises God who made man in 
his own image, and the Son of God, who from a 
throne came to be a poor servant, that he might serve 
those who had not a single claim upon him. Our re- 
gard for those who are under us is not to be gradu- 
ated by condition, but by character. A man, if he be 
worthy, is still a man, though he work lower down 
while I work higher up. We should scorn the thought 
of getting as much service as possible out of a man 
for the money paid him, whilst manifesting no regard 
for the humane, moral, and brotherly relations we sus- 
tain to him as the son of a common Father. And yet 
how often duty ceases right there. It is subversive of 
the unity of the race, and a virtual denial of God's truth 
— of the divine law of human relationship and brother- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2 I 5 

hood. I agree entirely with Mr. Gladden when he 
says, " It is not well, and it is not necessary, that the 
proprietor of a large establishment should withdraw 
himself from all personal relations with his working 
people. It is quite possible for him to know them 
well, and to study how he may fulfill the injunction of 
the apostle, and give unto them that which is just 
and equal. He is in some degree responsible for 
their welfare, and he ought not to ignore them." The 
same writer adds, " I know of one corporation, in a 
distant city, that discharged a most competent and 
faithful agent, because he devoted a large part of his 
Sundays and of his evenings to the promotion of the 
welfare and happiness of the operatives under his 
care. The directors seemed to think that he was not 
sufficiently hard-fisted and stony-hearted for their pur- 
poses, and they turned him out. I am happy to learn 
that their business has never prospered since it left 
his hands." 

The tendency to separate the employer and em- 
ployed is an evil, and a violation of sacred duty. It 
makes capital cruel and exclusive, and gives it a power 
to which it has no just claim; while it demeans labor, 
which is an appointment of God, and an important 
necessity in the development and happiness of man. 

It is an error that only by such a course can men 
be taught their place, and kept in the sphere of jus- 
tice to those upon whom they feel dependent. 

The way to teach men their place, and to impress 



21 6 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

them with just obligation, is to teach them their duty; 
and the employer cannot better do this than by doing 
his duty to them himself. I am confident that many 
of the sores that now disturb our social order, would 
never have been, and would soon be healed, if a larger 
recognition of the human, God-given rights of the 
toiling classes obtained among those who by the ac- 
cumulation of property, larger attainments, or a wider 
scope of enterprise, are set over them. There is a 
social distinction, based by men upon the sphere men 
fill, upon the circumstances and accidents of life, irre- 
spective of character, which often puts a worthy man 
down and an unworthy man up, and which has not 
the least countenance in God's Word, and might 
justly lay some who employ others, in their personal 
relations to them, open to the charge that has been 
made against corporations — namely, that they have 
no souls. Young gentlemen, if you are, or come to 
be, proprietors of large enterprises, and employers of 
men, remember that the dignity of duty will require 
you not simply to look at and think of the work being 
done, but of the men who are doing it ; and if you 
would lift them into greater efficiency, and a more 
conscientious fidelity, you will succeed best by a 
kindly regard for the rights by which God would bind 
the race into a loving brotherhood, and lift men up 
into a nobler manhood. 

If you are brought into this relation, you will do 
most for your country, most for society, most for 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2\J 

yourself, when you do what you can to underlay the 
fabric of social order, in its more dependent forms, 
with the principles of the Gospel as they apply to hu- 
man relations. 

It will be your duty, and your excellence as well, 
to discountenance everything, and to put the brand of 
your disapprobation on every institution, that aims to 
outrage the transcendent dignity and inalienable rights 
of man. Let everything perish, though it be a church 
itself, that would wrong and degrade the common, 
toiling, poor masses, because they are such. It is 
not the spirit of democracy alone, but the, spirit of 
Christ, that destines such to destruction. Carry out 
these suggestions to those in your employ, and you 
will do your duty, you will touch the heart and appeal 
to tne good in every noble-minded man ; and his re- 
sponse will be fidelity to the interests you have en- 
trusted to him. 

But now, this is only one side. It is quite probable 
•that most of you do now, and shall in the future, oc- 
cupy the place of employes rather than of employers. 
As such you have duties to perform, and your char- 
acter, your manhood, will be measured by the fidelity 
with which you perform them. The social disturb- 
ances of the times, and the lack of confidence so det- 
rimental to all true progress, are largely owing to 
lack of duty among those who fill the place of serv- 
ants in all the relations of life. 

The glory and fidelity of a man's duty consist in 



2l8 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

the spirit in which he performs it. A man does his 
duty, not so much with his hands and his brain, as 
with his soul. He may be strong in body and mind, 
but unless he is true and noble in spirit, he does not, 
cannot fill the wide compass of duty. When Crom- 
well petitioned Parliament for soldiers, in place of the 
old toddy-loving men who filled the Commonwealth's 
army, he demanded that they should be men " who 
made some conscience of what they did." If you 
would do your duty, put conscience into it. It is hu- 
miliating to find how largely men in the various walks 
of life, as servants of men and of the people, are act- 
uated by mercenary, selfish motives, and how little by 
conscience. Is it strange that men do not grow in 
true nobleness, but remain narrow and weak, when 
unworthy motives so constantly possess the soul ? 

Selfishness burns a man out and leaves him hollow; 
and many men kindle that kind of a fire, and keep it 
up in common duties, until by and by you see all the 
man there is left in the wasting flesh and blood that 
give him shape. Set about, young men, to calculate 
how barely you can satisfy your employer, where you 
can slight your duty and still hold your place, how 
you can get the advantage now and then, and you 
may save yourself a little physical tax, but you have 
done a mean thing, and played the fool, for you have 
struck from your nobler nature far more than you 
have stolen from your employer. Give me a man 
who has a conscience, and who reveals the majesty 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2IO, 

of it in what he does, no matter how contemptible the 
work he is engaged in may seem. How much better 
this world would be if more conscience were put into 
the work men are employed to do, and in the various 
callings they follow. We want more conscience in all 
the trades of the day ; then our carpentry, and our 
plumbing, and our cabinet-making, and our tailoring, 
will not be what they often are, but what they claim 
to be. The looms that weave our fabrics, and the es- 
tablishments that sell them to the people ; the artists 
that paint our faces ; the lawyers that propose to take 
care of our wills when dead, and to cut now the silver 
bond of marriage when it has rusted, and concerning 
which God has said, " Let no man put it asunder ; " 
the legislators who make our laws, and so tenderly 
claim only to be " the servants of the people ; " the 
dairyman who sells us milk ; the groom who cares for 
our horses ; the clerk who keeps our accounts ; the 
need of all these to-day, and of every other right work, 
is more conscience. More conscience in all the doings 
of men would be like sunlight when the storm is 
over ; and like the air purified when it has been washed 
by the heavens, it would brighten life, it would con- 
tribute to the public health and happiness, and a gen- 
eration of men would be lifted up to a higher nobility. 
There is a vast amount of slovenly, dishonest work 
done, and it has done much to degrade men, and to 
put them at very serious disadvantage. 

A man who does not put truth into his work, does 



220 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

not tell the truth, and he is doubly guilty when he 
makes the wood, or the fabric, or the opportunity, lie 
for him. 

Wherever you are employed, young men, and by 
whomsoever, put your conscience into your work ; 
do your duty, and though your employer wrong you, 
never wrong yourself by slighting your task. Be 
very careful that circumstances, the removal of re- 
straints, are not allowed to rob your conscience of its 
sublime liberty. Better maintain your conscience in 
doing your duty, than to escape the reproach of men, 
or be relieved of denying some unworthy passion 
within you that clamors for gratification. 

Some of you are not long from home. You have 
come down to the great city to strike for your for- 
tune. You had pious parents, and you made con- 
science of religious duties ; you read your Bible, and 
were found in the house of God ; you had a Sabbath 
shining among the days of the week like a star in a 
constellation : but now there is a new order — home 
restraints are off, and here you notice that many pro- 
fessedly good people are not at all devotedly pious ; 
you are swept away by their example ; your Bible is 
neglected ; the social club or circle takes the place of 
God's house, and your Sabbath is turned into a pleas- 
ure day; you are not doing your duty,' your con- 
science is hushed. And that is the way, young man, 
to blast noble convictions, to blot out a true sense of 
honor, to vulgarize your manhood, to make your life 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 221 

sensual and devilish ; and henceforth you will not be 
as faithful to your employer. You have struck at the 
noble spirit of duty, and more than ever you will be 
a selfish server ; and though your employer should 
get his due, duty will be no longer to you a source 
of moral growth and power. A man who cannot be 
trusted in the higher spheres of duty, cannot well be 

trusted in the lower. 

« 

And be careful, to carry your conscience into the 
smallest duty. Nothing is indifferent, the faithful 
doing of which responds to moral obligation in a man. 
Some men cannot be trusted with details. A thing 
of duty with them is determined by its massiveness, 
its quantity, or the capacity it may have for promo- 
tion and self-glorification. In all the universe very 
little things are very important. It would seem that 
God was very careful in making a spear of grass, and 
there is more of wonder in the throat of a canary 
than there is in the shaggy head of a lion. The faith- 
fulness of a man is not determined by the size of his 
work ; and duty is never done when its force is ex- 
pended on the great things at the expense of smaller 
obligations. The truth is, almost everything great is 
made up of indifferent parts. There is a sublimity in 
little things ; the dew-drop may reflect the sun, and 
when one confers the dignity of conscientious duty 
upon the smallest part of his work, he has not only 
served well, but he has laid down the stairway of his 
own promotion. It is nobler to be faithful than to be 



222 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

famous, and I assure you, young men, if you would 
give vastness and greatness to your duty, if you 
would ever climb to the ideal yet a dream in your 
mind, it will be by faithfulness in the smallest matters. 

Never fail to do your duty because others may 
scorn it as quite unworthy of their rank and attain- 
ments. Is it duty ? — then, though the proud call it 
low, do it, and pity those that they know no better. 

God in heaven does not forget the man who con- 
scientiously bends over a saw-buck, or cleans the 
stable of his employer. It has been quaintly said, 
that if God were to send two angels to earth, the one 
to sit on a throne and the other to sweep the streets 
of a city, it would be immaterial to each which they 
did, so lofty and noble would be their sense of duty. 

The great Wellington once said : " There is little 
or nothing in this life worth living for ; but we can all 
of us go straight forward and do our duty." And on 
one occasion, when an officer was greatly mortified at 
being reduced in his command, because the place he 
tried to fill was above his merit, the duke said : " In 
the course of my military career, I have gone from 
the command of a brigade to that of my regiment, 
and from the command of an army to that of a 
brigade or a division, as I was ordered, and without 
any feeling of mortification." 

Never shrink from doing your duty because some 
have put upon it the brand of littleness or contempt/ 
Remember that — 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 223 

" Honor and shame from no condition rise, 
Act well thy part, there all the honor lies. 
To such we render more than real respect, 
Whose conduct shows that they themselves respect." 

Carry a benevolent spirit into your duty. I mean 
that you shall not be constantly measuring it by con- 
ditions of law, or the amount of wages received. 
Duty serves a man best when it does more than 
procure his daily bread ; it should give enlargement 
to his moral being, and it will if he performs it in a 
benevolent spirit. I know that many will smile at 
this thought; but, young gentlemen, I wish to enno- 
ble your whole nature, and I think I can easily show 
you that men do not lose, but gain, by the exercise 
of a spirit in duty, which actually overreaches the de- 
mand made upon them. You are employed to do so 
much work for so much wages ; but do you think it 
looks noble for a young man, for any man, to be 
thinking all the time about the hands of the clock, 
and the minute of the first stroke, the time for recess, 
drop his work and off? Has he done his duty? 
Can a man who carries that kind of a spirit about 
him do his duty ? I do not mean to interfere with 
any of your rights. You are justly entitled to all 
you earn, and an honest employer will not withhold 
it ; but I would scorn a cringing spirit in doing your 
duty. 

Can the letter of a Bible promise hold all of God ? 
No, it is only the hem of his garment; it is only the 



224 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

little river-bank, the great waters of his love overflow 
all such limitation ; so the bare conditions of duty 
should never contain, or be sufficient to express, the 
whole of a man. That is a narrow nature that can 
be entirely covered up with a piece of coin. Do 
everything, young men, in the performance of your 
duty, that will give you character, manhood, and the 
esteem of men around you. Get some noble disci- 
pline as well as wages out of it. 

Dr. Matthews, in one of his books, quotes this 
word from a writer in the London Pall Mall Gazette, 
which gives wise emphasis to this point : " It is an 
utterly low view of business which regards it as only 
a means of getting a living. A man's business is his 
part of the world's work, his share of the great activi- 
ties which render society possible. He may like it 
or dislike it, but it is his work, and, as such, requires 
application, self-denial, discipline. It is his drill, and 
he cannot be thorough in his occupation without 
putting himself into it, checking his fancies, restrain- 
ing his impulses, and holding himself to the perpetual 
round of small details — without, in fact, submitting 
to his drill. But the perpetual call on a man's readi- 
ness, self-control, and vigor, which business makes ; 
the constant appeal to the intellect, the stress upon 
the will, the necessity for rapid and responsible exer- 
cise of judgment — all these constitute a high culture, 
though not the highest. It is a culture which 
strengthens and invigorates, if it does not refine ; 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 22 5 

which gives force, if not polish. It makes strong 
,men, and ready men, and men of vast capacity for 
affairs, though it does not necessarily make refined 
men or gentlemen." It is true of all noble spheres of 
duty. 

Always aim, not to do less, but more than is ex- 
pected of you, and my word for it, fortune will favor 
you, and, what is still better, Providence will smile 
upon you. 

Duty has a powerful impulse in a happy spirit. 
That man is unfortunate who comes to his duty in a 
spirit so cheerless as to indicate that his work is 
drudgery. Man is out of harmony with the universe 
unless he is happy. The sun starts out rejoicing as a 
strong man to run a race. There is a tireless glee in 
the motion and life of all on which we look. There 
is music everywhere — the hum of duty is in the 
music of the stars, the anthem of the wind. " The 
song of creation is the hymn of duty. Every bird 
that sings, every bee that hums, every flower that 
lifts its tremulous voice of praise to him who has 
made so good a world, every star 

" ' Which in its motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim,' 

bears its part in the great flood of harmony which 
floats the tributes of the duty of creation before the 
eternal throne." God made man to be happy, and 
the work he does should play upon him as though 
he were an instrument. 
'5 



2 26 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Be sure your work is noble and good, be sure it is 
the work God made you to do, and then learn to be 
happy in it. I love to see the toiler, with horny 
hands, trip away to his work with a song on his lips 
and a smile on his face. Your duty will be drudgery 
if you have no joy in it. A man's work should fit 
him so well, and he should do it under such impulses, 
and for such an aim, as that it would prove the place 
of his delight. I can scarce think of a greater 
hindrance to duty, and I know nothing that will 
make it more of a wasting, wearing tax, than the 
absence of a real pleasure in it. A man cannot sur- 
vive long who has no joy in duty. Archbishop 
Hughes wished to be buried in the sunshine; it is 
still better to live and work in it. Carry the sunshine 
into your work. Some one has said in answer to a 
question as to how temptation should be overcome: 
" Cheerfulness is the first thing, cheerfulness is the 
second, arid cheerfulness is the third." And cheer- 
fulness in duty is to a man's work what oiling is to 
the machinery; it puts a smoothness, a beauty into it, 
as the sun often hangs a golden fringe on the retiring 
cloud. Cultivate a cheerful spirit in duty. Away 
with men, with honest men, in a world like this, 
whose soul and expression are "navy blue," who are 
always bemoaning their lot, and whose companion- 
ship and presence are as mournful as the pall on a 
bier. No noble manhood can grow in such a soil, 
and to be compelled to live in such a presence is a 
calamity from which, good Lord, deliver us all. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 227 

Carry cheerfulness, an innocent joy, into all your 
duty; be happy, and make others happy. With a 
high sense of all that is noble, make yourself a real 
treasure to your employer, a bed of flowers to the 
community, and it will put zest and efficiency into 
your work, lustre into your character, and endurance 
into your life. 

Finally, young men, be governed by God's law in 
the performance of every duty. The highest standard 
of duty is the law of God. Man is a responsible 
being. He may not own it, but that does not oblit- 
erate a truth which is written in the human soul as 
well as in God's word. It is the dignity of man that 
he is accountable for his acts to the God who made 
him; and it is his glory, the revelation of his higher 
self, that he recognizes it. You will not be worth 
more in yourselves, nor of greater value to your 
employers, young men, by indifference to, or denial 
of, your accountability to God. There is no higher 
qualification for a man in any sphere for which he 
has been trained, than the fact that he recognizes his 
obligation to God in all his duty. A man may be a 
senator, a merchant, a tradesman, or only a common 
toiler in the street, but if he has no regard for his 
future accountability, he demeans his rational sover- 
eignty, and is just as disqualified in one place as in 
the other. 

Daniel Webster was once asked what was the 
greatest thought that ever entered his mind, and his 



228 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

reply was : " The greatest thought that has ever 
entered my mind, is my accountability to God." It 
is a most solemn thing, but I assure you, young men, 
you will never know what true joy is until you come 
into a consciousness of God's approbation in what 
you do. " Duty wrought in the fear of God," as 
George Herbert says, " gives us music at midnight." 
And this divine rule of conduct may be carried into 
every duty. It is a fatal error to suppose that a man 
is only responsible to God in duties that are wholly 
religious, and it is a farce unworthy the recognition 
of a noble nature, that a man ought to be religious in 
one place, and may be irreligious in another. Christ 
recognizes a cup of cold water given out of a holy 
motive, and the conditions of judgment involve the 
very words of man, still more that discharge of daily 
duty which honors or abuses the relation he sustains 
to his fellow-man. 

Oh, to what a sublime level life would be lifted, if 
men recognized God's law, and their final account, in 
all they do. That, I am sure, would bring the angels 
back to sing as of old in the skies of Bethlehem, and 
in their bright train Jesus would follow, announcing 
the new heavens and the new earth. A man's faith, 
his religious character, must influence his duty every- 
where. If a man is an atheist, an infidel, what cares 
he for human responsibility ? he recognizes no such 
law. He lives in a starless land, and his unbelief 
grants him a license as base as it is wide. And just 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 229 

in proportion as a man is immoral, to the extent that 
he is wanting in sound Christian principle, to that ex- 
tent will his unfaithfulness to duty be a probability, 
only prevented by the selfishness that possesses him, 
or the circumstances that surround him. Oh, young 
men, you will be grand if you will get up into that 
bright light, that radiates the brows of angels, where 
duty all the time and everywhere is done, because it 
is right, because God commands it, and because man 
is too noble to do otherwise. A life of duty stretches 
out before you. If it only be work, it will be poor 
enough ; but if it be duty, it will end in glory and im- 
mortality. 

"What shall I do to be forever known? 

Thy duty ever! 
This did full many who yet sleep unknown, 

Oh ! never, never ! 
Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown, 

Whom thou knowest not ? 
By angel's trump in heaven their praise is blown, 

Divine their lot. 

"What shall I do to gain eternal life ? 

Discharge aright 
The simple dues with which each day is rife ? 

Yea, with thy might, 
Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise, 

Will life be fled, 
While whosoever acts as conscience cries 

Shall live, though dead." 

Let fidelity everywhere ennoble your meanest toil, 
and your name will not be forgotten, nor your reward 
withheld. There is no higher nor grander impulse, 



23O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

than the impulse to duty. The lustre of the great, 
of the stars, of the angelic throng, ail blend in the 
glory that falls on the path of duty. 

When Napoleon caught sight of the Mamelukes 
drawn up in battle line on the banks of the Nile, he 
pointed to the Pyramids and said : " Soldiers ! from 
the summits of yonder Pyramids forty generations 
are looking down upon you." Young gentleman, 
from the sublimer heights of a worthy immortality, 
and from the far off dazzling hills of heaven, the 
spirits of the just, God, and angels, look at you ; do 
your duty, and when life closes, consider that you 
have only filled a mission worthy of you, if you can 
say in the great words of the brave Nelson when he 
was dying, " I have done my duty ; I praise God 
for it." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MODEL YOUNG MAN, 

TT 7E are born in debt. We step upon the stage of 
» V existence to enjoy the inheritance, and to be 
confronted at every turn with the image of those who 
have lived before us. God's processes are not always 
consummated in the age in which they are started ; 
they contemplate ages to come, and the ages to come 
brighten with their glory. The full blessing of one 
generation, or of one great nature, may stretch across 
a century, as the glow of the rising sun darts across 
the heavens. 

Astronomers tell us that light is beaming on us to- 
day that may have been a thousand years on its jour- 
ney. What is true in astronomical science, is quite 
as true of moral processes and events. To-day we 
are having the advantage of martyrdoms, sacrifices, 
testimonies, and battles, whose origin stretches far 
back into the gray past of human history. Abel is 
long dead, but his noble life is our heritage, and 
whether our ears are open to its holy symphony or 
not, he still speaks. What a wealth we have in lofty 
temples, hoary with age, in ingenious machinery, in 

(231) 



232 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

useful discovery, in literature of poet, prophet, and 
sage, and in that still more crystal stream of holy in- 
fluence and example, which have done so much to 
transform this desert-world into a fruitful field. But 
whence this harvest, so vast and golden ? What do 
we see in these but the monogram of those who are 
now dead, and of whom the world was not worthy. 
We owe the past more than we can pay, and we shall 
best appreciate the good of the by-gone time by an 
emulation that will turn it into a pedestal on which, 
because of it, we may rear a still nobler immortality. 
In the progress of the generations, human life and 
manhood have attained a brilliant eminence ; but with 
all the advantage that comes of the test and accumu- 
lation of right forces, and from the lessons of mis- 
takes, and the inspiration of successes, it is an almost 
startling fact, that our own advanced age has pro- 
duced no nobler characters than the more limited 
help and sterner discipline of the venerable past have 
furnished. As we look back from our own high point 
of view, what tall, sun- crowned men we see here and 
there ; how they stand, round and grand, up against 
the face of the sky, majestic in its light. My thought 
falls amid the glory of Babylon, and one of the world's 
proudest kings, of nearly twenty-five centuries 
ago; and even then and there I read that there were 
giants in those days — men of royal nature, whose 
greatness, like some old weather-beaten cliff, or like 
some grand arch, hangs over us, and invites us to 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 233 

pass under to the victory that lies beyond. Such a 
one was the prophet Daniel, whom I present to you 
as a Model Young Man. A poor German woman, 
on one occasion, pointed to a portrait of Martin Lu- 
ther, hanging on the wall of her humble home, and 
remarked, " It does one good to look upon his manly, 
honest face." I trust you to whom these words may 
come may share that experience, as we attempt to de- 
fine the sublimest portrait of the Hebrew youth. 

Two things are essential in the rearing of character, 
and in the best development of human life. One is 
the power of principle or of truth, and the other is the 
force of example. The German woman was impressed 
for good by the face of the great reformer, but it was 
not the vision before her that made her better, but 
the life and manhood, the grand example suggested 
by it. So we are stirred to the noble, and urged for- 
ward to elevation in character and life, by the example 
others provide us. Men are slow to. comprehend the- 
oretic morals. It was not enough that God revealed 
himself in the letter, he must come in the mystery 
and majesty of incarnation. It is not enough that 
men hear, they must see ; and when we behold among 
our own kind an approach to the ideal man, what an 
inspiration the sublime example affords! There is no 
eloquence like that which moves in a well-ordered 
life — no logic like the logic of example. If I want to 
see the poetry, the pathos, the power, the divinity of 
a human being, I must look at his life, I must see the 
model after which he is made. 



2 34 L1FE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Nor is it an idle task of necessity, neither on my 
part, nor on yours, that I point you, young men, to 
such an illustrious example of a true manhood as 
we shall discover in Daniel. Circumstances have in- 
deed much to do with both character and life, but it 
happens that Daniel shone brightest and achieved 
most when circumstances and all lower forces were 
against him. A young man of this age, and of your 
advantages, should blush to shield the poverty or evil 
of his life and character, by any contrast with the cir- 
cumstances attending Daniel's life in the palace of a 
heathen monarch and tyrant. In holding up to you 
this model, the question is not, will you become a 
Daniel or no ? but helped by the inspiration and force 
of so grand a humanity, will you become what you 
may, will you reach out and up until you fill all the 
space your great possibilities define, and then, like 
Daniel, stand out, immortal in the history of men, and 
in that influence which is the heritage of the genera- 
tions. Your place is not the one Daniel occupied ; 
but the image of what he was you may see, take on, 
and impress upon others. 

Daniel is supposed to have descended from one of 
the highest Jewish families, and to have been of royal 
blood. He was born in Jerusalem. He was carried 
captive by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon when but 
fourteen years of age. 

Of the three others who were taken with him, he 
was regarded as the best favored both in body and 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 235 

mind, and from the beginning gave promise of supe- 
rior excellence of character, and of that sublime des- 
tiny which, after the lapse of so many ages, still 
crowns his memory. 

The proud monarch evidently felt that he had a 
prize in him, and with high hopes he placed him under 
the special training of the Babylonian eunuchs. But 
Daniel, with this special culture, was already so much 
more in all that is essential for the highest ministry, 
than the king who now held the sceptre over him, 
that the order might have been consistently reversed 
— the sovereign made the pupil, and the captive the 
preceptor. And it so happened that this very dispar- 
ity between king and subject — this wide breach of soul 
— became the occasion of serious difficulty. The king 
was favorably impressed with Daniel's personal ap- 
pearance and intellectual attainments ; but this young 
man had a God and a religion, and the monarch of 
Babylon had neither, and he had no disposition either 
to adopt or tolerate those of Daniel. In the language 
of one of our own : " As men of the world delight in 
the erudition, eloquence, and attainments of Christian 
ministers, if only spared those continual appeals to 
conscience and the everlasting urgency of the Gospel 
in its claims to the practical mastery of the heart and 
life, so the king of Babylon would .gladly avail him- 
self of Daniel's science and grace if he could only 
separate from them everything relating to Daniel's 
God." Here was the point of separation — it was 



236 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

moral — it was religious. A conflict, a time of real 
trial, confronts the young captive, and all the advant- 
age seems to be on the side of the throne. The life 
of a Hebrew boy would not be much in this sweep 
of regal power, inflamed by heathen prejudice, and 
Daniel is well aware of the extremity into which he 
has been brought. It is a momentous, a crisis period 
with him, and we shall see how he will carry himself 
through the storm that is gathering about him. 
What if, with such odds against him, he should hang 
an " emerald bow" on these clouds, will we not think 
better of humanity, and will you, young men, not be 
spurred to noblest endeavor. 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime." 

Let us look at Daniel's piety, and then at some ele- 
ments of his moral nature in detail. It is worthy of 
emphasis, and certainly no mean feature of a model 
young man, that Daniel was pious. I almost blush to 
say that in these times a feeling prevails that piety is 
not adapted to youth, and not a few young men feel 
that they are large and dignified, and true freemen, 
the associates of the worldly-wise, and the gay, and 
the independent in proportion as they lack that, to 
them, mystic thing, the grace of God. The king no- 
ticed Daniel's grace of person ; he was fair to look 
upon, and so not a few young men look well to, and 
long at this ; to be handsome on the dusty side of 
their humanity, and to be smart, especially so that 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 237 

they will be able to imitate some eloquent scorner 
and throw mud at the Christian religion, all this they 
count much, and no small part of a so-called manly 
independence. There is a disrespect shown to per- 
sonal piety to-day, and a scornful appropriation of it 
to the grave and aged, that are lamentable and seem 
to say to our young men, Look well to your clothes, 
get something into your head if you can, but leave 
your heart which is the fountain of your life, as dry as 
Sahara's waste. And who does that, who bars the 
divine from the supreme affection, gives to his life a 
downward course, and will finally lose it in the black-, 
ness of mortification, disgust, and ruin. Yes, my 
young friends, Daniel had piety, and but for that I 
should not be able now to point you to him shining 
like a resplendent star in the blended glory of God's 
purposes and his own immortality. And then, too, 
what a staunch religion was his. It was no morning- 
dew affair ; it was neither a sham nor a show, but 
solid, like the rock on which it rested, and beautiful 
like the heaven toward which it blossomed. 

That his outer man might be properly developed, 
the king had set apart a special diet for him. Ah, 
this young man might have thought himself highly 
favored to be feasted from the table of a king. What 
a boast that would be for many a young devotee of 
show and fashion. " I eat of the king's meat and 
drink of the king's wine." Now, young friends, if 
Daniel had been an animal, he would have had enough 



238 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

in this. For an animal, what more is needed than 
meat, and drink, and shelter? But now, if there be a 
spiritual life in man, if the flash of a solemn destiny 
is on his path, then he wants more than food and 
wine, and underneath the meanest rubbish the thirst 
of the soul will cry out for satisfaction. Daniel was 
seeking to gratify a nobler hunger than the king 
sought to satisfy. It was an honor to be so noticed 
by royalty, but stop — principle is involved on Daniel's 
part in his relation to this diet, and principle is a 
sacred thing ; that food is associated and identified 
with heathen superstition in such a manner as that 
Daniel cannot touch it without compromising his 
religion and conscience. 

Now the question is settled; the fact that these viands 
came from a king's table makes no difference ; con- 
science, principle, and religious conviction are greater 
than kings and cannot be surrendered, though thrones 
crumble and kings lie discrowned in their ruins. 
" Daniel proposed in his heart that he would not de- 
file himself with- the portion of the king's meat, nor 
with the wine which he drank." See, young men, 
what iron resolution and loyalty to principle there is 
here. Some men would, smile at Daniel in the stand 
he took, and attribute it to an innocent stupidity, but 
Daniel knew what he was about, and in this devotion 
to principle he rose above the throne, and captive 
that he was, he stood on the corner-stone of his future 
greatness. No light-weight, superficial, accommodat- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 239 

ing religion was this young man's. His was the piety 
of principle, an attraction to angels and a blessing to 
men. Whether in this or in that after scene, which, 
on man's part, thrust him into the lion's den, and on 
God's, brought the angels trooping from heaven, here 
is a young man that has convictions of right and he 
will not give them up. Sway him by circumstances, 
or by an appeal to the senses and appetites ! As well 
attempt to toss the mountains into the sea with an in- 
fant's arm. As Punshon has it, *' Let a man be firmly 
principled in his religion, he may travel from the 
tropics to the poles, it will never catch cold on the 
journey. Set him down in the desert, and just as the 
palm-tree thrusts its roots beneath the envious sand in 
search of sustenance, he will manage somehow to find 
living water there. Banish him to the dreariest Patmos 
you can find, he will get a grand Apocalypse among its 
barren crags. Thrust him into an inner prison and 
make his feet fast in the stocks ; the Doxology will 
reverberate through the dungeon, making such mel- 
ody within its walls of stone that the keeper shall 
relapse into a man, and the prisoners hearing it shall 
dream of freedom and of home." To one like Daniel, 
let circumstances roll up like a black cloud and in the 
lightning that shoots athwart it he will only reveal 
his glory. 

Woe to the young man that gives up honest and 
right convictions — he is letting the blood out of his 
moral nature, and it won't be long until it will have 
wasted away under so fatal a consumption 



24O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

I shall hope that most of you are religious, and that 
all of you are the friends of principles that roo.t them- 
selves in the everlasting God. Look well to the base 
and permanency of your piety. Never let any 
thought of it, nor any association into which circum- 
stances may place it, bring the blush to your cheek, 
but in the face of conflict and test of every kind, let it 
stand, if it must be, alone, but in the majesty of com- 
pleteness and fidelity. Away with piety that grows 
on the top of the ground, like some worthless weed, 
and that does not wind its root about the rocks, like 
some tall cedar of Lebanon. Away with a piety that 
must be covered up on a testing occasion, as flowers 
are covered to protect them from frost. No such 
sickly thing was Daniel's religion, young men, and 
you will be stronger men everywhere, a model in 
your class, if, in this respect, you are like him. 
Daniel was true to himself, and then obedient to the 
king afterwards ; and he would not be worth my com- 
mendation and your imitation if he had not been. 

Young men, get yourselves up into the place of 
God's appointment, and then be true to yourselves. 
Shall Daniel be a heathen because he is in Babylon ? 
Shall you be weak, unprincipled, whipped about by 
the base approaches of men — a vacillating thing, as 
uncertain and as fickle as the winds — that you may 
get favor, and that designing men may get you ? 

Ah ! Daniel's moral and religious convictions were 
not things to be bought and sold to the highest 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 24 1 

bidder. No, he was a man, and his manhood was 
worth more than promotion, a place in the crowd, or 
the profit of earthly merchandise. 

You, young men, especially if you have a religious 
conscience, feel the pressure that many spheres of life 
lay upon you to-day. There is a civilization and a 
progress that ignores God's law as much as we ignore 
the writings of Confucius, and you are confronted 
by it in business and elsewhere. What shall you do 
when business men and corporations whose example 
is pernicious demand that to serve them you shall 
give up the Sabbath and your most sacred principles ? 
Stand by your convictions, be true to the higher and 
nobler self you have come to be, and God will stand 
by you. 

Will it make you singular ? Be it so : the noblest 
sons of God are a peculiar people. God turns the 
mighty wheel of his providence for you. Heaven 
opens all its gates and beckons to you with sweet and 
bounteous invitation. Be true to that part of your- 
self which will be worth immortalizing. Be true to 
the manhood which has God for its father, Christ for 
its friend, and the Holy Ghost for its light. Have right, 
have holy convictions, convictions that have fallen 
from heaven, and are lustrous with its light ; and then 
stand by them. Daniel's piety, too, was of the pray- 
ing kind. He was intelligent, but not so conceited in 
his knowledge as to doubt whether God had a heart 
and an ear for the cry of a soul, nor did he dream 



242 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

that there was any consistency between a pretension 
of religion and the absence of this duty. Take away 
prayer to the God of heaven, and you unlock every 
gate between Christian faith and infidelity, and the 
broad gloomy way lies open before you. I fear not a 
few of our young men are traveling on it. It ends in 
a night as starless as the black clouds that unbosom 
the angry thunder. 

Daniel's habit of prayer did not only indicate the 
character of his piety, but also the quality of his man- 
hood. Prayer involves such elements, and contem- 
plates such issues, as make it not only an act of 
worship, but an interpreter of the moral nature, and 
of the highest aims of life. It implies dependence, 
and is the confession, of weakness ; and yet, when it 
is intelligent and sincere, it is the expression of the 
vastness and lofty aims of the human soul. He is 
not the victim of delusion and superstition, who prays 
to the God of heaven, and so fastens himself to the 
girdle of his omnipotence; he is moving in a light 
brighter than all the flash of science, because it beams 
in a higher sphere, and produces results that con- 
found all the learning of men. Daniel's praying was 
mightier than the combined rage of Darius and the 
wild beasts to which he tossed his victim. Nothing 
under heaven has given men* and women such en- 
largement in all the excellence of human nature, such 
majesty of resources, and such a vision into the un- 
seen and imperishable, as the aspiration and cry of 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 243 

the heart in devout believing prayer. Daniel's path 
to greatness was thrown up, kept radiant with celes- 
tial light, by this fixed habit of his life. He rose rap- 
idly in the king's favor ; his force of character, his mas- 
terly abilities, and his unflinching reliability everywhere, 
made him a necessity in the empire, and an amount 
of business and a burden of responsibility was put 
upon him, that would overwhelm a half dozen of our 
modern statesmen. His task was full of perplexity, 
and required an amount of patience and skill, and a 
variety of gifts, that is marvelous. How will he rise 
above this mountain of duty and obligation, and 
achieve success ? The angels could tell you, young 
gentlemen, for they saw him on his knees three times 
a day. " Oh ! there is no fear, while the track to that 
chamber is a beaten one ; while the memories of home 
and temple are so fragrant ; while through the thrown- 
back lattice the morning sun shines in upon that 
silver-haired statesman upon his knees. He who can 
thus pray, will neither be faithless to man nor recre- 
ant to God." 

The really great and successful men of this world 
have been men of prayer. Daniel prayed, and he was 
a greater man on his knees than when administering 
the affairs of the empire. Luther prayed, and he was 
more a champion for liberty and' truth when unbur- 
dening his heart at the throne of grace, than when 
nailing his theses to the church door in Wittenberg, 
or standing in lone grandeur before the royal ecclesi- 



244 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

astic tribunal at Worms. Newton prayed, and he was 
more a giant when telling his wants to God, than 
when pursuing his bright way through the heavens. 
Washington prayed, and he never fought such battles 
as when bowed before the Divine majesty, in the 
brush or under the covering of his tent. 

Young men, I trust that neither pretentious and 
perverted attainments of learning, nor a vicious and 
corrupt condition of heart and soul, will ever lead you 
to scorn or esteem lightly this great privilege and 
duty, which, besides being such an unconquerable 
source of power, is also such a. true test of character 
and manhood. If you would emulate the example I 
bring you, if you would be winners in the race of life, 
start your journey from the throne of God, and let its 
light and power fall on every step of it. ' 

" For what are men better than sheep or goats, 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ! 
For so the whole round world is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

There was one other feature of Daniel's religion 
that makes him a model after which I would have you 
pattern. He made it a constant companion. He 
was not more pious as a humble worshipper in the 
place of prayer than as prime minister to the throne. 
As a man, as a citizen, as an official, as a subject, he 
was simply Daniel, serving with conscientious fidelity 
the God of heaven. His religion was not something 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 245 

fastened to him, as buttons are fastened to a garment ; 
not some ornate delicate affair, only brought out on 
special occasions, as wax work, covered with glass, is 
taken to an exposition. Separate Daniel from his re- 
ligion ? why, you would have to take the heart out of 
his body and the breath out of his soul ! His piety 
was no cold, isolated formality or pretension, that 
could be laid aside, and then taken up, as you would 
pick up a good book, and blow the dust from it. It 
was part of the man, as much as his hands were ; and 
in what he did, he could no more do without it, than 
he could dispense with the members of his body. He 
was a statesman ; but as such, he was not less loyal 
to God than to the empire. Will not this man be 
faithful in office? Conspiracy will marshal against 
him ; mean, selfish slander will strike him with its 
fangs ; envy will swear that the white of his character 
is black ; but when all is done, the only fault found in 
him is the fault of stern fidelity to God and man. 
Put this man down, who dares to intrude his religion 
upon secular affairs, and administer the empire on 
principles that have the sanction of the God of heaven? 
— sooner shall that mighty throne split asunder, and 
great Babylon be engulfed in the Euphrates. 

Young men, it is no ordinary calamity, no small 
blot and hindrance in many a life, and no moderate 
source of the monstrous evils and crimes that have 
drawn so black a margin about society to-day, in al- 
most every useful calling of life, that religion, per- 



246 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

sonal piety, has had such tender and partial treatment, 
as if it were in danger of being sullied by contact with 
the common affairs of men. Men have come to think, 
that when they put on the insignia of secular office, 
or take their place in the counting-room, or at the 
bar, or in the store, or shop, or home, they are, by 
right of their place, excused at once from bearing tes- 
timony for God and his righteousness ; and so any 
such life as Daniel's is rare among us, and what won- 
der his faithfulness is so often wanting in high places 
and in low? Oh ! what a world we shall have, when 
from every home ; when from every business mart ; 
when from every hall of justice and of law ; when 
from every temple of knowledge ; when from every 
enterprise and calling, some window shall open to- 
ward heaven, and a voice be daily heard uttering the 
needs of life into the ear of God. Nothing would so 
soon bar the unworthy and the profane from all the 
useful and right callings of life, nothing bring to man 
a civilization and enterprise at once so successful and 
permanent. Young men, if you have risen to the 
high plane of religious principles, never blush for 
them nor try to hide them away, when you go down 
among the mixed multitude in the toils of life. Boast 
never, but show your colors, whether you stand 
among the great or lowly, and never let God's angels 
catch you sporting the Christian name, but stript of 
the Christian's armor in the battle of daily life. If 
you must give up trades, professions, profits, and men, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 24/ 

let them go, but hold on to God ; be loyal to the King 
eternal, witness like a man for Christ in the sphere of 
your daily life, and quench the darkness out of noble 
work everywhere with the pure white light of truth 
and heaven, and like Daniel, you will enlarge and en- 
noble the position you fill. Give me a young man 
who does not divorce his faith in and obligation to 
God from, but identifies them with, his merchandise, 
with his law, with his civil office, with his work or 
position everywhere — there is a future before him. 

But now let us look at the liberty, the self-denial, 
and the temperance principles of this young man. 
You will see that the temptation put before him was 
very great. Here was a great flash of pomp and 
gorgeousness, and a brilliant flow of luxury and grati- 
fication. All those thoughts of greatness, and pride, 
and beauty, and all those feelings of superficial dig- 
nity, and honor, and privilege, and fame, which are 
not uncommon to young men, were appealed to; but 
Daniel, though young, had outgrown them, and he 
refused to part with his liberty for the trash offered in 
return. 

The reasoning of man is often very sophistical con- 
cerning moral questions and privileges in life. How 
many would say Daniel was a slave. Why, he was 
offered food and wine ffom a king's table, and his 
religion would not allow him to touch either. But 
was he not freer not to touch these and save defiling 
himself, than to have touched the king's meat and 



248 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

thereby violated his conscience ? Yes, he is always 
the freest man who has most of truth and right on 
his side. A thing may be beautiful, put me into a 
companionship far above that to which I have been 
accustomed; but suppose, after all, it only mocks my 
higher manhood, am I less or more a freeman if, 
responsive to the nobler demands of my nature, I re- 
fuse its acceptance ? 

No, Daniel stood up in a liberty to which the proud 
king of Babylon was a stranger. Any course of con- 
duct, any gratification that can make a man happy 
without God, anything that can drag him down so 
that he will be satisfied with what would satisfy an 
animal, is a servitude that will annihilate all that is 
noble and beautiful in his nature. Give me my free- 
dom, says Daniel, and let who will have this regal 
glory and this sensual gratification. You see, though 
Daniel' was a captive, he brought his religion with 
him. There is no noble liberty in that man, who, 
when in Rome, must do, not as he ought, but as Ro- 
mans do. Daniel had an independence, a 'real manli- 
ness, I covet for you, young friends. I have heard 
men say : " I know it is not good to drink, I am sure 
it does me harm ; but my business, my position, is 
such I cannot help it, I must do it." Such a man is 
a slave, and he ought never to boast of liberty over 
against men of Christian principle, until he has brushed 
the fetters from his soul. Cultivate Daniel's temper- 
ance principles, young men, and you will escape a 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 249 

slavery many would gladly throw off if they could. 
Temperance is not bondage, but the truest independ- 
ence. Moderation is not weakness, but mastery. 
Wine is enough to send some men reeling from duty 
and from God : Daniel was no such figure ; I trust 
you aspire to be like him. To men who have carried 
their chains for forty or fifty years I have nothing to 
say ; but to you, young men, I say with solemn and 
hopeful emphasis, Put your lower appetites into sub- 
jection — let the man of you be above, not below; and 
when temptation, and custom, and selfish offers assault 
you, assert your moral freedom, and if you cannot 
feast with kings you may sup with angels. And do 
not forget that with you, as with Daniel, the road to 
such largeness and liberty of soul is the road of a con- 
stant and sometimes severe discipline. 

John Wesley, arm in arm with another young man, 
on one occasion, passed through a room in which 
stood a table laden with luxuries good enough for 
the court of Babylon. The young man said to Mr. 
Wesley : " There is not much self-denial here ;" to 
which the preacher answered : " No, but there is a 
fine field for its exercise." My young friends, you will 
often find yourself crossing that field ; if you would 
have discipline, don't forget the exercise of self-denial. 
No man ever comes up into true nobility, into breadth 
and power of nature, without self-denial. You may 
have to toss many a gilt-edged invitation to the halls of 
gayety, splendor, feasting, and wine-bibbing, into the 



25O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

fire ; but if you have the liberty, the manhood to do it, 
you will have added pounds to your moral self, and 
have made your way to victory easier. You may have 
the king's wine and the king's meat, you may live amid 
the glitter of a club-house, but you will be a slave ; 
and you seem to me to be made for something higher 
than the chains of a degrading captivity ; only a little 
below the angels is where God would have you stand. 
I call you to your rightful sovereignty, to the free- 
dom of immortal beings on whose foreheads Jehovah 
has written his name ; I call you to the bondage of 
that love that wept over Jerusalem and bled away its 
life on the Cross ; I call you to the glorious liberty 
of the sons of God, and to the sweet bondage of him 
who " took upon him the form of a slave, and became 
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." 
" If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be 
free indeed." 

But I should overlook one of the noblest elements 
and sources of Daniel's greatness, did I fail to bring 
to your attention" his moral heroism. Time passes 
on, and Nebuchadnezzar is dashed from his throne to 
companionship with the beasts ; his pride humbled, he 
returns to a better mind and passes away. Belshazzar, 
inheriting his father's vanity and more than his father's 
daring, comes to the throne, and after an iniquitous 
reign, is hurled from it by the shock of God's just 
judgment, and Darius, the Median, takes the king- 
dom. Meantime Daniel has grown old, and amid all 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN, 25 I 

these changes and revolutions, stands there, a sublime 
witness to God's fidelity and his own integrity. 

But the presidents and princes conspire against 
him, and wrest a decree from the king, consigning 
any man to the lions' den who, for thirty days, offers 
petition to any other god than that of the heathen 
monarch. 

It was meant for Daniel, and now he is brought to 
that test by which tyrants, both civil and religious, 
more than once have thought to compel their victims 
to unholy submission. This was the last desperate 
resort of Daniel's foes. They had done their utmost 
to detect some flaw in his character, or find some 
fault in his administration ; but failing, they are com- 
pelled to make a confession that smites them as a flash 
of lightning, and exalts Daniel into a glory that would 
not demean an angel. " We shall not find any occa- 
sion against this Daniel, except we find it against him 
concerning the law of his God." There is no help ; 
Daniel must give up praying to the God of heaven or 
go to the lions' den. What will he do ? What 
would you have done .? A man's work gets character 
not only from its own inherent worth, but from the 
circumstances under which he accomplishes it. The 
material of which we are made is determined, not by 
the fact of good profession, nor of good doing when 
the way is clear, but rather by our persistency in the 
right when strong and threatening forces resist us. 
What Daniel was when a young captive, he will now 



252 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

be when the frost is on his head, and the responsi- 
bility of promotion is on his conscience. Thirty days 
you may think was no long time, and a man's life is a 
very precious thing to waste on a hungry lion. But, 
young gentlemen, the man who would save his life 
thus will lose it surely and forever. Thirty days of 
denial of God for Daniel would have struck out all 
that brilliant past as the flames quench a dwelling — 
by such a course he would have shattered his moral 
being, and he might have thrown to the wild beasts 
the wreck that remained, for the value would have 
been destroyed. But no, Daniel will do just as be- 
fore. There is peril now ; for aught he knows, death 
is to be the price of fidelity ; but the window is open 
towards Jerusalem, and over that " beaten path " he 
goes as usual, and unto the God of heaven offers his 
prayer. Great Daniel ! glorious brave spirit ! the 
question now is not what is safe ? what is expedient ? 
what will gratify the great crowd most ? Daniel 
could not stoop to such truckling, to such cowardice 
in such a time. He need not be advised and in- 
structed, he knows what is right ; and, God's moral 
hero, he will do it, though lions tear his flesh and 
tramp out his life. Neither his foes, nor the beasts, 
can pull down the grand character he has reared ; it 
rests on rock, and reacheth to the heavens. He may 
not have anticipated a miracle, but he knew that his 
God would deliver him, if need be ; and if not, he 
would rather add the victory of a grand death to the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2$$ 

victory of a grand life, than betray his God and con- 
science. Oh, I should love to see every young man 
crowned with that moral heroism, that now, after so 
long a time, reveals Daniel's name written on that 
column that stands up in the noblest history of the 
race, to be read there by generations as they pass, 
and to tell all the ages that God is true, and that right 
must win. Young men, there is a lack of moral 
heroes to-day, and will you add to the unenviable 
list? 

Would you take him for a model, whose principles 
of right were renounced when their maintenance ne- 
cessitated a conflict ? You despise a coward, a man 
who flees from danger when danger comes between 
himself and duty ; but remember that the basest of 
all cowards is the moral coward. 

The man who stands up for the right in any, in all 
relations, when custom, and law, and the gilded prizes 
of profit and ambition, and the tide of popular favor 
and personal security, all clamor for his fall, he is the 
moral hero, and God will spread his everlasting wings 
over him. What you want, my young friends, if you 
would ever hope to attain to ruggedness and majesty 
of manhood, or to win the noblest wealth and dignity 
of life, is not to do what others do, not to do what 
will serve your perishable and lower self best, not to 
do what will save you most in the eyes of men ; but 
do right, pleasing God rather than man, though it 
scatter all you have in weird desolation. It is a grand 



2 54 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

sight to see any man, especially a young man, main- 
taining the right at any sacrifice ; but there is no 
lower exhibition of human nature than we have in 
that man who is bold to offensiveness in a good cause 
when no self-denial is required, but who is ready to 
barter away the rent garb of his manhood for the 
price of dishonor. I am sure, young friends, if you 
have not, you will yet discover that virtue sometimes 
must sleep on a hard pillow, and find shelter under a 
roof battered with tempest ; I know if you have not, 
you will yet find vice sometimes rich in gold and sil- 
ver, and godliness without a place to lay its head ; 
but if yours is the better part, remember the fate of 
Babylon and its kings, and rather prefer Daniel 
among- the lions. Be true men, be brave for right, 
and God will smite every peril before you, and close 
every mouth that would threaten or defame you. 

It is no credit to a man to have the king's meat 
and the king's wine, if he is a moral coward, swept 
away from the high and enduring eminence of right 
by assaults that every noble manhood will sweep 
back, as the rocks sweep back the broken waves of 
the sea. 

" Let the road be long and dreary, 
And its ending out of sight, 
Foot it bravely, never weary, 

Trust in God and do the right." 

But in presenting you this model for your imitation, 
I have not meant to turn you away from Christ. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN'. 255 

Daniel was great, and you shall be great if you 
emulate his illustrious example ; but a greater than 
Daniel is here ; and unless you pattern after that per- 
fect humanity and life which towers over all who have 
been counted worthy to stand in its shadow, you will 
not attain to the sublime excellence of the Hebrew 
captive, nor write your name in the light of his im- 
mortality. And what shall be the destiny of those 
who. take Jesus for their guide arid example, and who, 
like Daniel, are faithful to the end ? He himself 
spheres their glory in a figure, of which these beauti- 
ful words of another are only a meagre description. 
" Contemplate the -pure blue sky which arches over 
us, and has bent its fair circle round our world ever 
since man was made. How beautiful in the rosy 
dawn of morning, lit up with the joys of incoming 
day, and spreading out its arms of welcome to the 
rising king of light ! How sublime at high noon, 
flooded with brightness from horizon to horizon, and 
lifted up like some great celestial dome, whose arches 
seem to spring from eternity to eternity, to make a 
tabernacle for the sun ! How serenely sweet at sun- 
set, spread out like an inverted sea of liquid glass and 
gold, tinging all the earth with the mellow radiance 
of its glory ! How unspeakably charming and sol- 
emn in the silent midnight, looking like the appari- 
tion of some vast supernal city, with its myriad lamps 
lit and twinkling with immortal fires !" Revelation 



256 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

alike, young men, of God's glory, and picture of your 
rewards, if, like Daniel, you are true to God. and duty. 
" And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness 
of the firmament * * * and as the stars forever 
and ever." 



CHAPTER X. 

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE BIBLE. 

I^HE aim of this lecture is not to prove the Bible 
true, but to show your need of it, and its mar- 
velous adaptation to your highest wants. Such a 
demonstration, if in harmony with human reason and 
the endowment which God has given you, must itself 
be strong evidence of the truth of that Book which: 
has challenged the attention, and enshrined itself in 
the affections of a large and worthy part of mankind,, 
as no other book ever has. I shall assume that yoii 
believe it to be true, and shall try to confirm you in. 
that belief, rather than to convince you of the fact. 

If any of you are unfortunate enough to be infidel 
on the truth of the Bible, it is only the part of noble 
manliness and of intelligent reason to demand of you 
that you know why you reject a book that carries on 
its every page, and in all its wonderful history, so 
high a sanction. The Bible is a very pretentious 
book ; it has the dignity of venerableness, of highest 
human authority, and of a brilliant series of triumphs 
over obstacles that must have set at naught all merely 
human resistance; and we must count that man bold, 
if not stupid as well, who disbelieves a book like the 
J 7 (257) 



25b LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Bible, without any respectable arguments to sustain 
his position. It is a pitiable sight to see a man who 
lays claim to ordinary intelligence, especially a young 
man, asserting himself ignorantly and maliciously 
against a book like the Bible. The railing of an 
empty head is as little credit to the victim of such an 
appendage, as is his opposition harmful to the Book 
which he hates, not because it is bad, but because he 
is. It requires more than soap bubbles to beat down 
a granite shaft, and let him look well to the temper 
of his blade who parries with the Sword of the Spirit. 

But it is my hope, as I look into these manly faces, 
that God's angels see on them no such blushing brand 
as they have put upon the brow of that man who de- 
nies the Word of God. 

I am not here, young gentlemen, to defend the 
Bible. It needs neither your defence nor mine. It 
stands out in its own revelation and in the best history 
and experience of the world, on its own merits, and 
challenges respect and reverence, as with a gentle but 
unconquerable majesty it defies all opposition. 

I have a real desire to have you all on the side of 
the Bible, not simply because I believe it to be true, 
nor yet because I am persuaded that following it will 
be wholly best for you in life, but because I want you 
to be on the side of the grandest of victories when 
the consummation of God's great purposes shall have 
closed every blasphemer's mouth, and the shout of a 
completed universe shall vindicate the Word of the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 259 

Lord. I own to a worthy pride in this matter, and 
should feel a pang of real grief if I knew that one of 
you, with so much of hope before you, had hung 
over it all the blasting cloud of that defeat which 
sooner or later awaits that man who dashes himself 
against the everlasting pillar of God's Word. 

With no book are many of the tenderest memories 
of life so associated, as with the Bible. Many a 
young man sees in it in after life not only the name, 
but the sainted image of his mother ; and how many 
have fallen to the darkest depths of ruin, because by 
the hands of infidelity and vice they have struck both 
from its sacred pages. 

When the time came for you to go to the war, or 
on a long journey, or to quit the paternal roof to lay 
a hearth-stone of your own, your mother, true to that 
affection which is only a stream from the great 
fountain-heart of God, put a Bible inscribed with her 
own hand in your trunk ; a crystal tear fell on it as 
she laid it down, and the angels caught the glance of 
her love as it shot through the pearly drop, and 
bending over they heard the prayer to God that he 
would incline the feet now about to cross the thresh- 
old perhaps for the last time to walk in the light of it. 

Something like this comes to your mind as I speak, 
and the sigh that struggles up from many a heart 
gives emphasis to the question I ask. What have 
you done with your Bible ? Possibly the sweat and 
toil of your mother are in the price of it, and how 



260 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

are you appreciating the Book that cost her so much, 
and that she gave so cheerfully and fondly ? You 
came down to the great city, and soon found yourself 
swallowed up in the busy throng, and your mother 
away in the quiet home has thought every day about 
the Bible she put in your trunk — but have you ? A 
few times you have read it, but then you became en- 
grossed with the greedy cruel world, and your Bible, 
still good enough for your mother, answered you no 
longer. Is it true ? 

Where is your Bible ? What a history of life, of 
hope, or of despair, of destiny, is in that question. 
Ah, how many young men, have started from a closed 
Bible, fragrant as an alabaster box with a mother's 
devotion, down to ruin and death. The bitter, hope- 
less fate of thousands never would have been, but for 
their hatred to and neglect of the Bible. How many 
might join Hartley Colridge in these sad, remorseful 
lines, written by himself in his Bible on his twenty- 
fifth birthday: 

"When I received this volume small, 
My years were barely seventeen, 
When it was hoped I should be all 

Which once, alas ! I might have been. 

"And now my years are twenty-five, 
And every mother hopes her lamb, 
And every happy child alive, 
May never be what now I am." 

That is bitter penitence, and it sounds as if it had 
wrung a mother's heart as well as quite broken his 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 26 1 

own; but if the tears of such a weeping fall on a ne- 
glected Bible, and in this case they did, hope will be 
lifted from its ashes, and the life may be brought back 
to the firm anchorage of God's Word. 

The Bible has a very strong claim upon you, not 
only on account of its superhuman origin, but in the 
fact that it is for you, and is so pre-eminently adapted 
to you. Men often resist and abuse the Bible as if 
God had some special and selfish interest in it, where- 
as, the fact is, it is for man. God does not need a 
Bible, but men do ; and see ! he has condescended to 
have a book written for you and me, that in all high- 
est interests we may have a lamp to our feet, and a 
light to our pathway. It was a really wonderful 
thing for God to do — to write and print his revelation 
for such as we are ; what a bowing of the Infinite 
Majesty is that ! It might have been other than it is, 
but the wonder of it is, that it is what it is — a printed 
revelation of God to us — a guiding chart, revealing 
his will and our duty, and cemented in one great 
whole by the blood of his own Son. He knew our 
dullness and blindness, and so he has gone into 
details, and set everything before us within the scope 
of our faculties, and thus he seeks to bring us to a 
growth and destiny where we can dispense with the 
letter, and we shall stand where the Lamb is the 
light, and God is the temple. 

How wonderful is the fact and condescension of 
revelation, and what obligation it puts upon us, and 



262 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

what brazenness and horror it puts into the malice 
and slander of the opposer of the Bible. Emphatic- 
ally, the Bible is man's book, and the book that God 
himself hands to him and bids him read, and plant 
himself upon, and grow out of, until in his manhood 
and character God shall see a reclaimed child, and 
the world a tree of life, scattering leaves for the heal- 
ing of the nations. In its every part, from first to 
last, it is a book of this world, and about this world, 
and for this world; and in all that is truest and highest, 
you, young men, can no more do without it than you 
can dispense with the air that inflates your lungs. 
As we shall see before we have done, it is so con- 
structed, and is endowed with a teaching and spirit so 
multiform, that it permeates every part of man's 
nature, and every relation of life. 

Take one single part, the book of Proverbs, and 
where, among all the productions of men, is there 
anything to compare with it, as a directory of life, and 
a delineation of character ? That single book, not, it 
is true, so intensely spiritual as some others, is invalu- 
able, and is freighted all through with a practical 
wisdom, bearing directly on every-day life, that puts 
far into the shade all other treatises that ever came 
from the mind of man. Let every young man, who 
wishes a sound policy of life, and a true and lasting- 
basis of character, drink deeply and often from this 
fountain of wisdom. And the same royal truths, 
embosomed in a profounder spirituality, glitter like 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 263 

diamonds in the New Testament. All through every 
fair and intelligent mind will discover a beautiful 
harmony between its great truths in whatever form 
they may be put, and the faculties of the soul, the 
infirmities of the flesh, and the duties and destiny of 
men. 

The Bible would be a useless book to the angels, 
for all practical purposes ; but for man it has the adapt- 
ation to the true, and noble, and great in him, that 
the natural world has to the wants and laws of the 
human body. The Word of God is a book for the 
world — it is the book for the merchant, for the lawyer, 
for the statesman, for the workingman ; it is pre-emi- 
nently the young man's book, and who takes it will 
feel the throbbing of God's soul up against his own, 
and he will grow until he comes to the roundness 
possible in human development to those' who have 
made it the man of their counsel. When the Bible is 
no longer needed in this world, it will be because 
there are no men who are weak, and tempted, and 
ignorant, and oppressed ; " no men who are hungry, 
and need food ; no men who are sinning, and need 
mercy ; no men who are lost, and need the salvation 
of God." The Bible is man's book, and I ask you 
before whom life stretches, burdened with unspeaka- 
ble possibilities, and hemmed about with numerous 
perils, you who have everything worth human 
thought and effort at stake, take this book, try it, 
apply it to your many wants, and it will be time 



264 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

enough to cast it away, or turn upon it the frown of 
your indifference, when you find that it has failed you; 
but when you find that, you will have discovered that 
your creation was a monster mistake, and your life a 
desolating failure. Nor will it be unworthy of your 
thought, my young friends, that the testimony and 
experience of great minds and noble natures confirm 
this harmony between God's truth and man's nature 
and wants. Diderot was right when he said, " No 
better lessons than those of the Bible can I teach my 
child." Franklin struck the key-note of the soundest 
philosophy, when, with dying breath, he said : 
" Young man, my advice to you, is that you cultivate 
an acquaintance with, and a firm belief in, the holy 
Scriptures — this is your certain interest." Patrick 
Henry said : " Here is a book worth more than all 
others ever printed." John Adams said : " The 
Bible is the best book in the world." Said John 
Quincy Adams : " So great is my veneration for the 
Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it, 
the more confident will be my hopes that they will 
prove useful citizens to their country and respectable 
members of society." Andrew Jackson, pointing to 
the Bible, said : " That Book, sir, is the rock on 
which our republic rests." Goethe said : " It is a 
belief in the Bible which has served me as the guide 
of my moral and literary life." Sir Isaac Newton 
said : " I account the Scriptures of God to be the 
most sublime philosophy." " To give a man," said 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 265 

Locke, " a full knowledge of true morality, I should 
need to send him to no other book than the New 
Testament." "A noble Book !" said Carlyle. "All 
men's Book. It is our first statement of the never- 
ending problem of man's destiny, and God's way with 
men on earth." Said William Wilberforce : " Read 
the Bible. Read the Bible ! Through all my per- 
plexities and distresses, I never read any other book, 
I never knew the want of any other. ' It has been my 
hourly study, and all my knowledge of the doctrines, 
all my acquaintance with the experience and realities 
of religion, I have derived from the Bible _ only." 
And so I might go on until the limits of this lecture 
were taken up, summoning from the bright realms of 
immortality, and from the highest and noblest spheres 
of distinction to-day, men of genius, and intellect, and 
character, who witness for the truth of God, and set 
the seal of their unanswerable experience to the fact 
that it is God's Book for man's need. 
• I stand in awe before that cloud of witnesses, and 
I am proud of the following this Book has had. 
Men of loftiest mind, and, what is still more, men of 
unimpeachable character, have bowed at its shrine 
and paid their devotions there. The world has fur- 
nished no greater, no better men. Their brows carry 
the laurels of our esteem. We uncover before them. 
To their homes or graves we make' pilgrimages. 
They live among us, though dead. Their memory, 
their works, their words, are a legacy we pass on to 



266 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

the generations, and a train of light follows. I want 
you to live with, and after awhile to be written on the 
bright record of such a companionship. 

And I submit, is there no argument in the fact that 
the greatest and best of the ages not only witness to 
the Bible, but point to it as the rich soil out of which 
they have grown ? Place beside these such men as 
Hume, who confessed that he had never read the 
Bible with attention ; and Voltaire, who said of Christ, 
" Crush the wretch," and then surrendered himself to 
the basest passions ; and Paine, who said, " Crush the 
wretch," and then reeled away in drunkenness and 
uncleanliness ; and Max Stirner, who said, " Crush 
the wretch," and then wrote, "All which I can be and 
have, entirely careless whether it be human or inhu- 
man, I will be and will have ;" and La Mettrie, who 
said, " Crush the wretch," and wrote, " Virtue and 
vice are empty words ; the chief care of a reasonable 
man should be to satisfy his desires." On this black 
shaft of infamy I might yet write the name of that 
modern blasphemer, Ingersoll, who charges the Bible 
with being false in its statements and vile in its 
teaching, and so has dashed to the dust the best 
hopes of many a young man. 

With which of these armies will you identify your- 
selves, young men, and when life closes, where will 
you be written ? on that scroll so bright and golden, 
its light lingering on the ages, as the flush of sunset 
lingers on the horizon ? or on that page of infamy, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 267 

only bright as the black cloud is bright when the 
v death-dealing lightning cleaves its bosom ? You 
may stand on which side you please, but if you value 
your life, if you have any regard for your destiny and 
your after- memory, look at these two classes as they 
stand out in the history and companionship of the 
world, and, unless reason be dethroned, or you have 
gone mad in wickedness, you cannot hesitate long to 
join those to whom the Bible has been and now is 
the wisdom and power of God. 

And lest such a decision might cost some of you a 
struggle, let me ask you to come to God's Book with 
a kindly spirit. You have no right to oppose or 
reject the Bible because you do not feel that it is true, 
for really, considering what it is, and what it says 
you are, that fact is an argument in its favor rather 
than against it. If a man should come to this Book 
with a friendly feeling, and with a heart whose affection- 
ate impulses went out to the help of needy humanity, 
he could not remain its enemy very long. "A bad 
heart," said the earl of Rochester to Bishop Burnet, 
"is the great argument against this Holy Book;" 
that is, it is the great argument for the bad heart. 
Men who oppose the Bible get their mental complex- 
ion of it, not from what it is, but from what they are. 
It is not strange that a man should find his nature 
kindle with hostility at sight of God's Book. In its 
silence it condemns him, and he shuns it as he does 
an officer of the law. Does he call it bad ? Why 



268 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

does he not strike hands with it, or covenant with it 
to help him in his wickedness? Ah ! but it is not bad, 
it is holy, and because of the immense moral disparity 
between himself and it, he only can think of it as 
being like himself. 

A Bible opposer sees the Bible as a man sees a 
mountain at a remote distance, only in cragged out- 
line. Of its majesty and beauty, and purity, he 
knows nothing, because these grand elements are not 
in him. To him it is only a muddy pool, and the 
image lies in the fountain which he himself supplies. 
The lowest wretch who has gone down to bestiality 
only finds in the Bible that which is like him; but it 
is no fault of the Bible, but of the man. A fiend 
would sport over and vulgarize an angel, and so an 
opposer and hater of the Bible, reading only the let- 
ter and knowing nothing of the sweet, pure spirit of 
God's love that runs through it, like a sea of glass, 
will regard it as unfit even for him, whom perchance, 
respectable society bars out as unfit for it. 

Come to the Bible, my young friends, with a 
friendly feeling, and such reverence as you can com- 
mand, else your judgment of it will not harm it, but 
disclose the great depths you inhabit below it. Don't 
come prejudiced against and having pre-judged it. 
How can you sit in judgment on what you have not 
read, or if read, have not tested ; and if you discover, 
it to be God's good Book, will you venture to toss it 
into the scales of your judgment in a spirit that de- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 269 

mands that it must come to your standard or be 
thrown away ? Remember that the character you 
bring- to the investigation of a book like God's, will 
determine largely how it will seem to you, as it does 
determine, the world over, the verity of it. When 
men who are acknowledged to be pure and good, the 
friends of the race and of the highest civilization, be- 
gin to oppose God's Book, then I shall begin to doubt 
the necessity of my belief in it, but till then, I shall 
believe and would have you believe, that — ■ 

" What none can prove a forgery may be true, 
What none but bad men wish exploded, 7uus/." 

Accept the Bible in its simplicity, and not in the 
confusion of scientific or theological tongues. Take 
it as God's Book, coming in place of God himself, to 
teach you in a manner adapted to your comprehen- 
sion what you are, how you should live, how you 
may die, and how you may reign in the kingdom 
everlasting. What so fickle as the tests which men 
bring to this grand Book? Every 'year furnishes a 
new set of them. Now it is scientific and now his- 
toric ; like the channel of our own great river, one 
day the test is here and another there, and all the 
time the great, grand Book remains the same, only 
growing firmer and richer by the dash and overflow 
of these muddy streams. I am glad to believe that 
there are thousands who are reading and growing 
into the ideal humanity under the heavenly refreshing 
of this Book, away from the babel of tongues that 



27O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEX. 

are measuring it by this standard and that. Do you 
want a test of it ? Then go into the homes it has re- 
generated, and be regaled by the incense of the altars 
it has reared there ; feel the warm glow of the hearts 
it has quickened into holiest affections, and see the 
lives into which it has put the only image of angels 
we may see on earth ; and go into that community 
over whose wilderness it has swept the breath of a 
new life, until it is redolent with a heavenly blossom- 
ing. Test it by what it has done. By its fruit let it 
stand or fall. Thus you would decide upon the safety 
of an ordinary business speculation. Will you show 
a book that purports to have come from God and to 
involve your present and eternal well-being, less 
respect ? 

Do not be ill-content with the Bible, and reject it 
because you cannot understand it. God wrote it and 
though it is as low as man, it is as high as God. Let 
Ezekial's wheels whirl until you are blinded by their 
dazzling sheen, and the great sounding mystery of 
John startle you with its flood of terror and glory 
combined. There is many a page you can read, and 
turn over, and feed upon, and when you have mas- 
tered these, step higher up and look out on a wider 
range of God's great purpose of love, and by and by, 
every door of the temple of truth will open, and your 
tramp may be heard from court to dome. 

Who rejects the Bible on- account of its mysteries, 
is like a man who gives up education because he 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2J\ 

must begin with the alphabet ; or like one who shuts 
his ears to some grand symphony because the first 
note is tame. 

What are mysteries but as the earth at night time 
speeding on with swift wing to the all-revealing 
brightness of morning. Is there mystery with the 
Bible? Socrates found more without it. All that is 
great touches the mysterious. In proportion as a 
thing rises from vulgarity and commonplace, it gets 
into the sphere of the profound. 

Believing in God, I glory in mystery. To-morrow 
is the mystery of to-day ; night is the mystery of 
noontide ; immortality is the mystery of death ; heaven 
is the mystery of earth. It is an index of weakness 
to fall out with anything God has made because of its 
mystery. The infidel shouts over what to him are 
the muddy mysteries of God's Book : first let him 
blush that he cannot explain himself. I am glad for 
God's mysteries wherever I find them ; out of their 
impenetrableness my faith gets music, and on these, 
as ivy on a trellis, I entwine my dearest and brightest 
hopes. You need not take the Bible without evi- 
dence ; but does a man want better evidence of the 
value of a tree, than the fruit it gives him ? 

" You believe in the Bible, I presume," said one 
passenger to another, in the cars. " Certainly I do," 
was the reply. " I presume you believe in it because 
of your mother's teaching," said the one, in a scornful 
tone. " Precisely so," was the answer. " I do not 



2/2 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

see how that can be a good reason," said the foe 
of God's Book. "I am independent. I don't mean 
to believe anything because somebody else does so." 
" Stop right there a moment," said the other. " I 
was taught the Bible by my mother, by her life as 
well as her lips. The Bible made my mother the 
best, the sweetest, the noblest woman I ever knew. 
* * * I have other, and perhaps to you they would 
be stronger reasons, for believing in my Bible. But 
let me tell you that for myself, the strongest of all 
reasons is, that my mother taught me its truths. I 
had a Christian home. I have traveled some, and I 
know that there is not a Christian home on the con- 
tinent of Africa, there is not one in Asia, aside from 
what this religion of the Bible has done within a few 
years past. And as for you, sir," turning to the 
opposer, "let me say just this: either you had or did 
not have an early Christian home. If you had a 
pious father and a praying mother, and were taught 
the biblical truths, and now have turned away from 
the Holy Book, you are, I am certain, far less of a 
man, morally, for it. * * * You are not so pure, so 
strong in principle. Right and wrong, good and evil, 
are not words with so much meaning as they would 
have had if you had read your Bible and striven to 
shape your life ' by its directions. * * * Yes, I do 
believe in the Bible, in part, at least, because my 
mother did. And it is dearer because it was her 
Bible, and my God is more reverenced because he 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2JT, 

was my mother's God, and Christ is loved because 
he was my mother's Saviour, and heaven is more 
precious because the heaven of the Bible is my 
mother's heaven." 

And to this test of experience and life, what did 
the blushing skeptic answer ? What could he answer 
in presence of a nobler manhood, which had its roots 
in the Bible, as taught by the lips and life of a 
mother? He was silent. Ah! that is not a Book 
unworthy of your faith and following, which makes 
homes brighter, men better, and the world grander. 
I shall be satisfied, young gentlemen, if you will take 
the Bible's own results for the test of its divinity and 
value. If you do this, I can assure you, you will not 
be deceived. 

All hail ! that Book, which is another Emmanuel — 
God with us. What a march it has had down through 
the ages ! What a track of light it has left, beside 
which the milky way is dim and dull ! What gates 
of heaven it has thrown open upon this world ! 
what angel bands it has brought from the radiant 
skies to the homes of earth, to the down-trodden and 
oppressed, to the beds of the sick and dying ; and 
how it has made the over-arching sky resonant with 
the shout of God's love, as on the night the Christ 
was born ! And for you, young men, if you will take 
it and follow it, it will make your life here a rich field 
waving with golden grain, and your eternity an 
unwasting harvest of glory. 



274 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

" Nay, were the seas one chrysolite, 
The earth one golden ball, 
And diamonds all the stars of night, 
This Book was worth them all." 

You need this Book, young friends, in order that 
you may become thoroughly acquainted with your- 
selves. 

An ancient sage has said : " Man, know thyself." 
Few sentences in the tongue we speak comprehend 
so much. What thousands of the race, adding daily 
to their acquaintances and to their field of informa- 
tion, still remain strangers to themselves! Lack of 
familiarity in the various enterprises of life, in all 
relations, involves both peril and misfortune. Unac- 
quainted with a particular business, a man fails in it. 
Ignorant of the philosophy of complicated machinery, 
a man loses his life in trying to operate it. And how 
is a man to rear a true character, and to order his 
life so that it will issue wisely, if he is ignorant of that 
part of himself which, most of all, constitutes him a 
man, and which, more than all, enters into all he 
does ? And where shall he acquire this knowledge ? 
Nowhere as in the Word of God. Man's conscious 
being is drawn here with a master-hand. The mirror 
on the wall will reflect the material and wasting side 
of him ; but the mirror of God's Word will expose 
the inner image, and dissect him until the very fibre 
of his thought and the very temper of his feelings, 
the very spirit of his motives and the very tone of his 
utterance, are laid bare. Tupper says : " Learn God, 



\ 

LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 275 

thou shalt know thyself." God is in his Word, and 
this is what he says of it as a discloser of man's 
innermost being. " For the Word of God is quick 
and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, 
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and 
spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner 
of the thoughts and intents of the heart." 

The Bible is radical ; it probes to the bottom ; if a 
man comes to it in the right spirit, it will so define 
and expound him, as to leave him in no doubt as to 
what he is and as to what he should do, that the 
image may be stript of deformity and molded into 
symmetry and power. "The Bible puts a candle 
where no other hand ever placed one, and lighting up 
all the avenues of our most secret life and thought, 
we feel that the book we must shut up when we are 
going to do evil is God's Book." 

"This is the great hold, the sovereign mastery, 
which the Book of God has over the ages — that it 
knows us, that it gives articulation to our dumb 
reproaches, that it puts into the best words the things 
which we reap against ourselves and cannot fully 
explain." 

If you would see yourselves, young men, as every 
man must who would adjust himself to life with good 
hope of success, you must open the Bible and look at 
yourself in the blaze of infinite wisdom. You will 
see many a stain, many a flaw, and if you are a true 
man, the blush will come to your cheek that you 



276 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

could have been so deceived ; but you will see as well 
the great remedy there for your own re-creation in 
him who is without spot and blameless. Who knows 
himself well enough to pattern after Christ, in what 
he would become, and in what he would do, may 
bless God for the day that he went to the Bible for 
that knowledge of himself he could get nowhere else. 

And all this but goes to prove how much you 
need the Bible for the right development of your 
moral nature. The physician who can furnish the 
truest diagnosis of the case, is most likely to be the 
most competent to prescribe the needed remedy. 
And so the Bible is the best healer of the sores it 
exposes. Here the peculiar and exclusive fitness of 
the Bible is made manifest. Like water poured upon 
the flower, it goes to every root of our being, and 
communicates its life through all the branches of our 
nature. Think of a character, of a life, without the 
spirit and truth of the Bible in it. What a barren 
waste it must be ! how selfish, and warped, and 
vicious ! 

There is something in God's Word to meet all the 
diversity of right taste, and all the variety of mind, so 
characteristic of human nature. I might specify 
every element that enters into a true character ; I 
might enumerate every faculty that enters into the 
fabric of man's moral and intellectual being ; and no 
matter how large the number, or how varied the 
cravings of each, the Bible is adequate to all, and to 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG iMEN. 277 

this fountain they may all come, and man's being will 
never touch God's ideal until it does drink from this 
living stream. 

"I see," said the gifted Hallam, " that the Bible fits 
into every fold and crevice of the human heart." 
Take the Incarnation. Who can think of it with any 
sense of the devoutness it challenges? — who can 
behold it in any vestige of that faith and love which 
to noblest humanity is its legitimate fruit, without 
feeling the thrill of a holy transformation going on 
within himself? •' I find," continues Hallam, " in the 
doctrine of the cross a peculiar and inexhaustable 
treasure for the affections, the idea of the theanthropos, 
the God whose goings-forth have been, from everlast- 
ing, becoming visible to men for their redemption as 
an earthly temporal creature ; living, acting, and 
suffering among themselves, and, what is more import- 
ant, transferring to the unseen place of his spiritual 
agency the same humanity he wore on earth, so that 
the lapse of generations can in no way affect the con- 
ception of his identity; this is the most powerful 
thought that ever addressed itself to the human 
imagination." 

And when so massive and so productive a thought 
as this weaves itself into a man's moral being ; when 
it becomes the rich soil in which his faith, his holiest 
joy, his noblest impulses, and his grandest hopes are 
all rooted, what will it not do for him? What self- 
denial, what a sense of justice, and sympathy, and 



278 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

love, and purity, and truth, such a revelation must 
impart ! 

Let a man permeate all his being with the spirit 
and truth of the Bible, and in his thought, and in his 
affections, and in his judgment and will, and in his 
habit, there will come to be that vigor, and righteous- 
ness, and real mastery of manhood, that alone can fill 
the scope of man's possibilities, and at all fit him for the 
responsibilities of life and companionship with God. 

Young men, in rearing the house of your life, put 
the Bible into the foundation, and it will glow like 
the jasper in the wall of the city of God, and then 
hang it up, a lamp lighted by God himself, in every 
part of the structure, and evil will find no dwelling 
place there ; but all the noble and beautiful elements 
that enter into humanity, will shine like the orna- 
ments of a palace, and your own life will become a 
repetition of that revelation which is the sun of the 
moral heavens. 

But you will greatly need this Book to put a check 
upon the tide of worldliness and temptation to which 
you are so much exposed. What so strong a bul- 
wark against error, in whatever form it presents itself, 
as the Truth? Oh! I compassionate you, when I 
remember the great flood of vanity and of evil in a 
thousand forms, which you are compelled to meet ! 

Unavoidably life has a secular side for you, and 
though, if you are the master of it, if in your con- 
sciousness you are more than it, it may be made to 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 279 

help you, but it has an arbitrary spirit, and will wholly 
absorb you if it can, so that you will become the 
machine which it works, instead of the sovereign to 
whom it is only a secondary means in the promotion 
of your own and others' good. And, then, what 
troops of vices and temptations to sin will constantly 
assail you, and now and again leave on you the dark 
marks of their uncleanness. I am glad to introduce 
you to such a shield as the Bible. " Men are every- 
where tempted, often very sorely, and need victory ; 
the Bible offers protection and victory in the greatest 
straits and against the greatest odds. Men are born 
to trouble — ah ! what fights of afflictions sometimes — 
they need comforting; the Bible offers almost any 
degree of comfort, and points to cases almost without 
number, in which it has made its offers good. Men 
get dull and discouraged, and need stimulus and 
hope ; the Bible offers the inspiration of unlimited 
motive, and royal expectations." 

Young men, when you go down into the world, 
when you mix with men in the marts of trade, when 
you go to the struggle of toil, or whatever, in the 
active relations of life; if you would be truer, stronger, 
happier, braver, and more successful, take the Spirit 
and Word of the Lord Almighty with you. I care 
not what are your temptations, your difficulties, your 
toils, the Bible is your book. 

"A hand-book true, where they who run may read, 
To shun what paths, and what safe guides to heed." 



2 SO LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Some of you are going elsewhere for weapons to 
fight the battles of life; I commend to you the old, 
tried armor set in order by the hand • of the Living 
One himself. Give me that sword on which Jehovah's 
name is graven, and the temper of which is his 
omnipotence, and I can defy Satan and the world, and 
pluck victory off every field. Before that a host shall 
be as one man, and the bones of the mighty like 
straw, and the helmet of brass as the covering of ivy, 
and the breast- plate of iron as a flimsy gauze. Take 
it, young men, and join the number of those, an 
exceeding great army, who have come off more than 
conquerors through it. 

Is it asking too much that you give this Book a 
first place in your reading ? Great as. the Bible is, it 
is nothing to the man who does not read it. And of 
these how large is the number. 

The mass of men read much ; we are a nation of 
readers ; but it is a painful confession that among 
those who profess to believe, and to take the Bible as 
the revelation of their everlasting hopes, only the 
minority read this Book with anything like the fre- 
quency it merits, and they need. And this largely 
explains why so many are weakly in the higher 
spheres of experience and life. The body is fed, the 
mind is gratified, but the immortal soul is left to 
famish in sight of the bread God has provided for it. 
Young men, you will find much to occupy your time 
and attention, and it will not be remarkable if you 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 251 

find yourselves inclined to adopt the empty pretext 
of the great mass of men around you, and say, " I 
have no time to read the Bible." Not less ground- 
less would it be to say that you have no time to 
sleep. No man ever loses, but always gains time, 
who puts the glow of heaven into every morning by 
the reading of God's Book, unless he reads it to 
quibble and to scorn. 

Sir Matthew Hale, the Chief Justice of England, 
was a busy man, and yet I am sure this advice fo his 
children was not inconsistent with, his example : 
" Every morning read seriously and reverentially a 
portion of the Holy Scriptures. There is no book 
like the Bible for excellent learning, wisdom, and use." 
Said Doctor Samuel Johnson, that marvelous prodigy 
of learning, to a friend who visited him when dying. 
"Young man, listen to the voice of one who has 
possessed a certain degree of fame in this world, and 
who will shortly appear before his Maker ; read the 
Bible every day of your life." No time to read the 
Bible ? then you have no time to read the newspaper, 
and still less the sullied or trashy pages over which 
so many waste their night hours, and poison their 
moral blood. No time to read the Bible? then you 
have no time to consult the only true chart and com- 
pass given for man's guidance in the voyage he is 
making across life's stormy main, and are plunging on 
in the dark without that — 



282 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

" Star of Eternity ! the only star 
By which the bark of man can navigate 
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
Securely." 

Forty years ago, a now famous engineer sat by his 
fireside. Near by stood his little boy, a child of rare 
intelligence. It was early morning. The father took 
up the paper to read, but the boy, remembering the 
last words of his mother, yet moist with the tears 
that fell upon them, snatched away the paper and 
said: "The Bible first; the Bible first, papa!" It was 
enough. In the throng of a growing business that 
finally became immense, that father went forth ever 
after that with a higher recognition of God and duty. 
" The Bible first, papa," was ever ringing in his ears. 
It became his watchword. It ennobled and trans- 
figured his life. 

"The Bible first, papa;" thus spake a five-year child, 
With look of wistful eagerness, but in accents mild ; 

" The Bible first, papa, for so dear mother said, 
When with white lifted hands she prayed on her dying bed." 

" The Bible first, papa;" Ye men of the world, oh listen ! 
Nor blush, if tears unbidden, on cheek or eyelids glisten ! 
" The Bible first, papa !" Alas ! 'tis forgotten sadly ; 
As gains, and wealth and pleasure, earth's children follow madly. 

" The Bible first," young men ; for who honors it, 
honors God, and who honors God, God will honor. 
Keep the dust off your Bibles, and you will keep 
your souls clean and make your lives bright. 

Finally, you need the Bible in view of the ap- 
proaching future. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 283 

Your rapid tramp, young men, is toward a curtain 
that will roll up before you ere long. Behind it lie 
the mysteries of eternity, and your own being is in- 
volved in those mysteries. No form of unbelief will 
save you from that future, nor change a single reality 
of it. Far away in the abysmal depths of God's sol- 
emn purposes, there it lies, and each day brings you 
nearer to its revelation. But now, where will you 
find the lamp whose God-lit flame may penetrate and 
so disclose that beyond, that you may know the way 
when the curtain rises ? Perhaps it may rise very 
soon for some of you, and where shall you find the 
light that will give you glimpses now of it radiant 
with a Father's love ? In the Bible, only in the Bible. 
Of human sin, of human salvation, and of immortality 
and eternal life in heaven, we have no revelation ex- 
cept in the Bible. I address you as intelligent beings, 
as beings who will live when the stars have blushed 
away, and the mountains have crumbled, and as 
beings who must pass through the shadowy gates of 
death ; and I ask you, when God has lifted an arch 
over all that mystery, and hung a bright lamp in it. 
can you afford to slight it, much less dispense with it ? 
From a dying bed I hastened to write these closing 
words, and I can tell you the Bible helps mortals to 
die, and it is the only book that does. 

Will you think of the future, will you march up to 
its solemn, ever-swinging gates without the Bible? 
Will you snap your finger at God and eternity, and 



284 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

heaven and hell, and go out of the world as a merry 
dancer might whirl out of a lamp-lit room? That 
would be to brave eternity, and to mock God, and 
only a fool can do that. No, you will take the Bible; 
that will flash out the blackest night, and make your 
path through life, through death, and over the golden 
threshold bright as the glory of Jesus made the 
mount of transfiguration. " Do you know a book," 
says Mr. Cook, " that you are willing to put under 
your head for a pillow when you are dying ? Very 
well ; that is the Book you want to study when you 
are living. There is but one such book in the world. 
For one, I have made up my mind not to put under 
my head when I lie dying, anything written by Vol- 
taire, or Strauss, or Parker. We are too scientifically 
careful when we choose a book for a dying pillow. 
If you can tell me what you want for a dying pillow, 
I will tell you what you want for a pillar of fire in 
life — that is, the Bible, spiritually and scientifically 
understood by being transmuted into deeds." Yes, 
my young friends, this is the Book you need. You 
need it now, you will need it when you lie down to 
die. Follow its light and you will never stumble in 
the dark here, and your future path will be a street 
of gold. Profoundly interested in your well-being 
here and hereafter, out of the deepest and best con- 
victions of my soul I commend to your faith and 
love and obedience the blessed Bible. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEX. 285 

The Bible ! hast thou ever heard 

Of such a book? the author, God himself ; 

The subject, God and man, salvation, life 

And death — eternal life — eternal death — 

Dread words! whose meaning has no end, no bounds ! 

Most wondrous book ! bright candle of the Lord ! — 

This book — this holy book, on every line 

Mark'd with the seal of high divinity, 

On every leaf bedew'd with drops of love 

Divine ; and with the eternal heraldry 

And signature of God Almighty stamped 

From first to last ; this ray of sacred light, 

This lamp, from off the everlasting throne, 

Mercy took down, and in the night of Time 

Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow ; 

And evermore beseeching men, with tears 

And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live." 



CHAPTER XI. 

INFIDELITY OR CHRISTIANITY-WHICH? 

THE subject of the preceding lecture and of this 
are largely identical. The Bible and Christianity 
are as inseparable as parent and child. In a practical 
presentation of either, however, which is the most I 
contemplate, there are points of difference, or rather 
different conceptions of the same great fact, which, 
presented to the mind in their distinct relationship, 
will aid in correcting and deepening conviction. The 
Bible is to Christianity what the soil is to the tree ; 
what the fountain is to the stream, and what the fort 
is to the besieged. The Bible is the revelation, the 
dogma, the rule — Christianity is the spirit, the experi- 
ence, the life. When we speak of the Bible, we think 
of a book, of a divine book ; when we speak of Chris- 
tianity, we think of a redemptive scheme, and of a 
moral and spiritual force which we owe to the Bible, 
and which are abroad in the world. 

Infidelity is the rejection and resistance of both the 
stream and the fountain, of both the luminary and 
the light. There is something startling to my worth- 
iest sensibility in the mention of the word " infidelity," 

and as I come to speak of that system which in all 

(286) 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 287 

the ages has rudely and vainly sought to deprive the 
world of that one true religion which comes down 
from God out of heaven, and in which the purest 
joys, and the sublimest hopes of the race are em- 
bosomed. And as I look down the long, and often 
unsightly, ranks of the unbelieving, I am pained to 
see among them so many young men. In the last 
years these fated ranks have been recruited chiefly 
from among young men. 

I cannot look upon any number of such without 
feeling that they are worthy of a better faith and 
companionship. I know not whether any of you 
have so perverted your place, and so prostituted your 
manhood, as to have identified yourselves with the 
unbeliever and sco'rner. I trust you have not. If 
you have, I compassionate you ; I come with no 
reviling, but rather with the spirit of him who, when 
he was reviled, reviled not again ; and I ask your 
respectful attention and unprejudiced judgment to 
such a view of the nature and results of the true and 
false, as I shall pray may bring you, not simply to 
the assent of Christianity, but to its hearty acceptance 
as the spirit of your life, and the source of every best 
and brightest hope. And I shall consider it but just 
to remember, in my attitude before you to-night, that 
all unbelievers cannot fairly be included in the same 
class, or be regarded as equally responsible for their 
views. 

While no young man is excusable for his skepti- 



288 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

cism in this time of light, yet it is only the expression 
of a worthy* and winning sympathy to keep in view, 
when we come to minister to these " minds diseased," 
the mental peculiarities, and the unfortunate early 
association and training some men have had. There 
are men, young men, who grope in the dark, but 
with a struggling desire to seek the light, and are ill 
at ease. Living through the most susceptible period 
of their existence in an atmosphere, and before an 
example, all impregnated with the virus of infidelity, 
until all their faculties and habits have become set to 
it, what wonder that they should feel a revulsion 
when confronted with the great truths and mysteries 
of Christianity, and do even more than the more 
matured Nicodemus when, with the response of his 
startled reason, he resisted the Saviour. My heart 
goes out to these, and if I could chide them, it would 
be for their unreasonable guilt in refusing to gain 
additional light by neglecting the faithful use of what 
they now possess. 

If these words come to any such, let me say, the 
clouds will never vanish without your own effort. 
To say you want the light, you want to know the 
truth, and then to sit down and passively await their 
coming, is but one way of saying you want neither. 
Your condition is not wholly unenviable, if you must 
struggle toward the light and the truth, provided you 
sincerely and earnestly struggle. 

Faith wrested out of doubt, and opposing external 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 289 

forces, finds an appreciation in the soul that develops 
manhood fast, and makes the rock on which the feet 
are planted very solid. God never has and never 
will fail to come to the help of honesty and effort ; 
but with nothing but vain expression, every star will 
by and by drop out, and the soul will be lost in dark, 
black night. 

If a man has lost his' way, he will never find it by 
sitting down, or going to sleep ; he can neither wish 
nor dream himself out of the thicket. And I cannot 
but think that this is the trouble with a goodly 
number of those who say they are honest in their 
dishonest convictions. The wise men came to the 
Saviour by following, the star, and before what man 
in this enlightened time does not some star hang? 
What if it only glimmer between the rifts of the 
cloud ? let him follow it, and every step will increase 
its brightness. 

But now, making all allowance for these, there is 
another class to be pitied, indeed, but unworthy of 
sympathy. They are scorners ; their lips are blistered 
with blasphemy ; they hate God and religion because 
they wish to ; their vile calumny is the full measure- 
ment of what ' they are ; they are the enemies ot all 
who seek or believe in a better way ; they live to put 
darkness where there is light, and evil where there is 
good. Young men, the thief is a great criminal; the 
libertine, and gambler, and swindler are great crimi- 
nals; the murderer is a great criminal; but the crimi- 
19 



29O LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

nal over all is that man who hurls the bolts of his 
scorn and blasphemy at the Christian religion, and the 
throne of God from which it emanates. The brand 
of Cain was an ornament compared with the self- 
inflicted scar such a man carries on his brow. And 
when a man has gotten that far on the gloomy way 
of infidelity, he has imprisoned himself in a dungeon 
in whose nether darkness he will in all probability 
perish. On that horrid gateway is written : 

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here." 

Remember, my young friends, that on the ap- 
proaches to that dark abyss, many a poisonous flower 
is strewn, and many a false light flashes ; and to be 
beguiled on the way, in many instances, is to be won 
to the hopeless destiny. 

To a believer it is an ever-growing wonder that 
men who have ability to discern between the evil and 
the good, and to test the true and the false by their 
long standing and undeniable results in the world, 
should prefer infidelity to Christianity. For the most 
part, the reasons given are positively weak, and 
always more or less fallacious. The lament is, that 
the young are so apt to become the victims of these 
deceptions, and when once entangled in the meshes 
of the net, they find it difficult to achieve a rescue. 
Life is largely a fancy to them ; they have to do with 
the superficial of it, and borne along in a joyous glee, 
that might serve as the gilding of a better way, they 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 2<)I 

are thoughtless about results ; it is not the outcome, 
the permanency, the utility, the immortality of life, 
but the glitter, the present and momentary show of 
life they are concerned about ; and hence, without 
thought, they are apt to resist anything that would 
temper the gay with the grave, and to accept every- 
thing that would afford pretext for vanity and license. 

The truth is, Christianity comes to the young at 
very great disadvantage. Not because it lacks any- 
thing, not because it is not beautifully fitted to the 
peculiarities and necessities of their nature, but be- 
cause they move in a sphere that is slow to appre- 
hend the highest ^ood, and is content with the flash 
and shadow so immediately at hand, as not to require 
sober reflection, nor to impress them with the fact 
that there is a noon and an evening to the day, as 
well as a morning. 

Among the prevalent, and I may say most flimsy 
of these reasons, is the perversion and abuse of 
Christianity among those who profess it. Nothing 
in the world is put so much upon its good behavior 
and held to so strict an account as Christianity. 
Men who are not friendly to it are on the alert to 
discover if possible something with which it is asso- 
ciated that can be turned to its discredit. Something 
unhappy and unholy occurs in the church ; a man 
who figures more or less prominently falls into griev- 
ous sin — he is overtaken in a fault, or overreaches 
himself in his hypocrisy ; and no sooner does the 



2Q2 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

shock of the great wrong strike the public ear, than 
all the host of the unbelieving, like hounds which 
have gotten on the track of the fleeing hare, haste 
away for the prey, and in the shout of scorn that 
starts in the pit and echoes to the ends of the earth, 
many who I am certain have never been able to give 
an answer for the faith that is in them, surrender the 
withering remnant, and say : " If that is Christianity, 
we want none of it." The reason is not more 
groundless than it is foolish. The glory of Christi- 
anity is that it never misbehaves, that it never falls, 
that it wavers not with circumstances, that it is the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever; and the weakness 
of men is that they are ever swept from such a safe 
mooring, not by Christianity, but by the poor, faulty, 
and erring representatives of it. Shall we give up 
our homes, because some are bad and constantly vio- 
late every element of domestic bliss ? Young men, it 
is unfortunate that you should ever be made to feel 
the awful chill of the bad example of a professor of 
religion ; but in all reason, why should you think to 
renounce Christianity on this account? Which is the 
stronger, the more reasonable man ? — the man who 
professes to believe in Christianity, and then sullies its 
glory by his own ,sin, or the man who repudiates 
such a good because another has falsified it? Shall 
I reject the sun because the medium through which 
it shines is too dense to reveal its glory ? 

We are not to look at and judge of Christianity in 



LTFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 293 

the frail creatures who profess it, but in its Divine 
Author and in its best results. Find fault there, and 
you may renounce it at once. " Infidelity," says 
Robert Hall, " is the joint offspring- of an irreligious 
temper and unholy speculation, employed not in ex- 
amining the evidences of Christianity, but in detect- 
ing the vices and imperfections of professing Chris- 
tians." 

If we are to reject everything good and useful, be- 
cause of the mistakes men make and the errors they 
sometimes propagate, in the name of and in their as- 
sociation with these, then we shall have little left in 
any sphere of life ; then science must go, then educa- 
tion, the social order, government, and business must 
go, then our homes, our churches, and everything 
good with which men have to do, must go, and God 
must come to construct man and the world on a very 
different plan. 

In all candor the only thing I can find in this 
reason for renouncing Christianity is humiliating 
weakness ; it reflects on the limited intelligence of 
him who adopts it, and affords to infidelity a most 
flimsy and pitiable defence. 

Among the young, another reason which has had 
its influence in leading the mind away from Christi- 
anity to infidelity is a strange fascination to follow the 
crowd and to be thought independent. It seems that 
I should not hang the results involved in either of 
these upon a reason like this. And yet I am in 



294 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

doubt whether there is not quite as much if not more 
of plausibility in this latter over the former cause. 
To a man who is anxious only for the hope of the 
present life, there is much of argument in a com- 
munity of interest; and however poor the cause, great 
encouragement in the sweep of the popular tide. 

Men have always loved to go with the crowd. It 
was so when Noah was building the ark and preach- 
ing to the scorners ; it was so when Abraham was 
praying for Sodom and the angel hurried Lot away 
from peril ; and it is so now. Men, especially young 
men, and in a city like this, must sacrifice considerable 
to become Christians ; but if they join the unbeliev- 
ing mass, whose shout is in the air every day, see 
how pride is gratified, what an opportunity for god- 
less pleasure is afforded, and then there are no shack- 
les. Alas ! is it true, that young men, gifted of God, 
and endowed with possibilities almost unspeakable, 
deny the hand that fashioned them, scorn the Saviour 
who died for them, and then imagine that there is 
manliness in it. Young man, if the folly of the 
many, if a perverted notion of nobility and freedom 
has led you to adopt infidelity, lock it up as the 
secret of the heart which it has poisoned, and of the 
life which it has damned, and remember that though 
you go in the surging crowd, the countless stars are 
all against you, and that a vessel is not commended 
because its rotten timbers carried not one or two, but 
a multitude, to the bottom. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 295 

Another and more reasonable cause of the adop- 
tion of infidelity by some young men, is their un- 
fortunate home training. Nothing beautiful can grow 
in the burning sands of a desert ; and shall we look 
for more in a home where father and mother are God 
and Bible hating? Does Mr. Ingersoll boast that 
his daughter has never crossed the threshold of a 
church, and is it because the poor child has over- 
turned all the arguments in favor of religion ? No; 
rather is it not because she has been born and reared 
under the roof of an infidel, and by those whose 
object of greatest hate and scorn is that holy religion 
to which the homes of earth are indebted for their 
truest beauty and purest joys. The place, (for it is 
not a home, infidelity has blasted many a home, but 
it never made one) — the place, I say, where these stay, 
never has and never will mould a human being into 
the image of God. Whether parents can think of it 
with complacency or not, I am persuaded that right 
by the hearth-stone many a young man has first im- 
bibed the principles of skepticism, and gone reeling 
over the threshold of his own home into the starless 
night of atheism and infidelity. 

I might dwell long on this painful fact, which with- 
out fear challenges dispute, but I can only stay to 
say, let all who have been otherwise blessed compas- 
sionate these, and let the keepers of godless homes 
take warning ; and if my words come to any such who 
wish it might be otherwise, let me assure you that 



2g6 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

God's heart beats up against you, to help you to a 
nobler life and destiny. Though it make those of 
your own household your foes, strike for the liberty, 
something in you nobler than natural affection bids 
you long for. Christ and God before father and 
mother ; to have all is blessed, but if you must 
choose between them, choose for the Father above, 
and for the home beyond the stars, and you will be 
truest not only to yourself, but to those who love 
you. 

Ciit in twain every human tie, if it must be, and 
ally yourself to the Infinite Love, and there in the 
highest filial relation, there in the presence of Christ 
your Elder Brother, and there in the shining light of 
God's angels, you will have abundant compensation 
for your suffering. 

To these add the pre-disposition of the human 
heart in its inborn depravity to deny God and his 
Word, and you have some of the reasons why infi- 
delity is taken in preference to Christianity. But now 
in all these reasons, with more that might be added, 
what is there to commend the false and what to con- 
demn the true ? Is that system good and worthy of 
my respect that can gloat over and feed itself upon 
the wreck of one who has fallen like a star from 
heaven ? 

Will you believe and hang the hopes of your soul 
on that blasphemous and God-defiant scheme that 
scoffs what angels reverence because troops of de- 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 297 

luded men follow in its wake, and because it puts 
stiffness into all the lower elements of a man's nature, 
and calls it manly independence ? Will you bow at 
the shrine of that, that has been rocked in the cradle 
of some unfortunate children, and after it has been 
nourished into vigor has gone out to beat down the 
walls of home and to crush under its unclean hoof 
every flower of domestic bliss ? There is not a single 
cause of infidelity you can mention that in all reason 
and right may not be turned into a weapon against 
it, and does not commend the religion of the Bible, 
as man's sublimest culture and brightest hope. 

But now look a moment at the influence of infidel- 
ity on man's nature and relationship. The value of 
Christianity on the one hand, and the evil of infidelity 
on the other hand, will be determined in your minds, 
not by this profound argument or that. I do not 
come to you with the long, abstruse, and to many 
satisfactory arguments, deduced from prophecy, mira- 
cles and history, except as the latter records actual 
and practical results ; your ears would hardly be open 
to these, and if they were open, you might find it con- 
venient to resist me with counter arguments. I 
rather prefer to place these two systems side by side, 
to look at them in their own positive influence and 
out-working ; for after all, they will stand or fall in 
the minds of men by their own visible results. 
Christianity challenges such a test, and if infidelity 
shrinks from it, it only inflicts upon itself the doom 



298 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

it merits. What can these systems do for the ra- 
tional man who accepts the one or the other ? If in- 
fidelity can go down among the degraded masses of 
men, and remaining consistent with itself can make 
out of them the best fathers and mothers, the best 
citizens, the noblest philanthropists ; if it can by its 
own spirit and methods develop the truest and purest 
humanity, then all controversy must cease, and that 
scheme, however widely it be separated from any 
other, is established upon a basis too firm to be over- 
thrown ; set in the consciousness and experience of 
men, it will defy resistance. But now, young friends, 
after so long a trial, think you not that man is brazen 
in the extreme who will set up such a claim for infi- 
delity ? It would violate the whole history and the 
best spirit of mankind, and revolutionize the civiliza- 
tion of the world. When a good thought has ever 
flitted across the mind of infidelity, and been v/oven 
into its literature, when a good suggestion has ever 
come up out of the dark emptiness of its own heart, 
where did it get either, but from Christianity ? Dr. 
Phelps, in a lecture delivered in Boston some years 
ago, said: "The power with which the Scriptures are 
working in modern mind is disclosed in the vigor of 
our infidel literature. That literature owes nearly all 
the vitality it has to its pilferings of Christian nutri- 
ment. Its very life-blood comes by unconscious suc- 
tion from Christian fountains. 'The Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress ' and ' The Paradise Lost,' are not more palpably 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 299 

indebted to the Bible' than are many of the most 
thrilling conceptions in anti-Christian productions of 
our times. The most popular and effective of them 
no man could have written whose genius had not 
been developed by Christianity." 

" The elemental ideas of the Bible lie at the foun- 
dation of the whole of it. Christianity has wrought 
such revolutions of opinion ; it has thrown into the 
world so much of original thought ; it has organized 
so many institutions, customs, unwritten laws of life ; 
it has leavened society with such a powerful antisep- 
tic to the putrescent elements of depravity ; and it has 
therefore positively created so much of the best 
material of humanity — that now the noblest type of 
civilization cannot be conceived of otherwise than as 
a debtor to the Christian Scriptures." 

Do you tell me that infidels are sometimes 
well-behaved, and courteous, and kind, to a degree 
that challenges respect? I ask you, would they be 
so with their system, but for the refining influence of 
Christianity? And how do they answer for that 
great reeking, reeling crowd, their own prodigy, who 
revel beast-like in evil passions, and are unworthy a 
place in any sphere of trust, or home of refinement? 
Whatever the external, after all it is true that "a 
man is known by the company he keeps." Infidelity 
is paganism, barring its superstition ; and but for 
Christianity it would have long since added this and 
more. No man or any thought accepts the system 



300 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

without a struggle, nor do such maintain it in their 
own consciousness without a continued struggle. 
The stomach is so constructed that it will throw off 
what is not agreeable to the taste and good for the 
body. And so all man's faculties indicate that he 
was made to be a believer, and he cannot be other 
without a violation of the noblest feelings of his soul. 
Where there is light, and intelligence, and virtue, it is 
difficult to be an infidel; and hence the poisonous 
weed grows best where there is most darkness, and 
most license and crime. Blow your breath upon a 
mirror, or draw sand-paper over a polished surface, 
and you deface its beauty ; and so when a man 
becomes infidel, he blurs the polish from his soul, and 
wilts it into deformity ; he puts bad blood into his 
moral constitution, and one of the first things he will 
do, will be to profane the name of the God who made 
him; he has kindled in himself an antagonism to law, 
order and goodness, and like a madman he will fight 
the stars and the elements ; he has perverted, deranged 
himself, and the realm of his own soul becomes the 
scene of contention and disquietude. Like a vessel 
torn from its fastening, he plunges away at the mercy 
of a thousand tempests, for which he will curse 
Christianity, perhaps, unconscious that he is reaping 
all the while the terrible harvest of his own sowing. 
" I seem," says Hume, " affrighted and confounded 
with the solitude in which I am placed by my philos- 
ophy. When I look abroad, on every side I see 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 3OI 

dispute, contradiction, distraction. When I turn my 
eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. 
Where am I ? or what am I ? From what cause do 
I derive my existence? To what condition shall I 
return ? I am confounded with questions. I begin 
to fancy myself in a most deplorable condition, 
environed with darkness on every side." Voltaire 
said: "In man is more wretchedness than in all 
other animals put together. The bulk of mankind 
are nothing more than a crowd of wretches equally 
criminal, equally unfortunate." These two men, 
endowed with no mean intellectual gifts, adopted 
infidelity, and you see into what monsters it grew 
them. It chilled the fountain of their affections until 
every stream of the heart ran in the mire ; and when 
shock followed shock in their lawless way, and bewil- 
dered they came to the cold philosophy in which 
they had trusted, and knocked on the gates of its 
crumbling citadel, they got no response but the sound 
of emptiness from within. How different with the 
Christian who, for even such, can pray : " Father, 
forgive them, they know not what they do ;" and 
looking on the bow spanning every cloud of his life, 
can say :" I know whom I have believed, and that he 
is able to keep that which I have committed to him 
against that day." Oh ! young men, do you want a 
shriveled, barren, irritable soul ? Think of such a 
soul ! No compass, no grandeur, no tenderness, no 
aspiration God and heavenward, — a soul diseased, 



302 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

narrow, wilted, hostile, blind to. beauty, deaf to music, 
idiotic, rushing away from God and glory ! If you 
do, I know nothing under heaven that can furnish it 
but infidelity. 

But see now the influence of infidelity on the sense 
of personal responsibility. Without a sense^of obli- 
gation society could not exist. Is it a mere presump- 
tion when I say, that where Christianity is most 
dominant, and is best represented, there is most of it ? 
Will any man venture to say that the sense of 
responsibility between man and man is keenest and 
oftenest observed among atheists and infidels, and 
that their philosophy is superior to the Christian 
religion as a source and means of its cultivation ? 
And if it be found that infidelity tends to make men 
untrustworthy, that it blunts the human conscience, 
and elevates human selfishness into a supremacy that 
recognizes no rights but its own, shall I demean my- 
self by a surrender to its claims? But do you say 
that you know one man here and there (rare excep- 
tion) who is an infidel, and yet responsible in his 
human relations ? Admit it. But where is his sense 
of responsibility rooted ? Not in the principles of his 
infidelity, I am sure. Figs do not grow on thorns, 
nor grapes on thistles. Many a man is better than 
his faulty religion, and so, here and there, a man is 
better than his infidelity. The question is, How 
does the system operate on the greatest mass in this 
respect ? If you are about to enter into a large and 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 3O3 

complicated business, where serious trusts must be 
given into the hands of others, will you, on the 
ground of the need of a higher sense of responsibility 
among your assistants, select them from anions 
infidels and atheists ? If you have a case in court, 
which involves your whole property, and your future 
happiness, will you make it a condition that the jury 
must be men who deny the Christian religion, on the 
ground that you wish men whom you know are 
responsible ? Does this seem absurd ? Well, I only 
wish to know, if infidelity cannot make and sustain 
this claim, is it worthy the respect of you to whom I 
speak ? No, my friends, the natural, the reasonable 
tendency of a disbelief in God, and of the Christian 
religion, which is but another form of atheism, is to 
loosen and hurl into indifference all sense of responsi- 
bility. What principle of infidelity can, or ever has, 
evolved so sacred a thing as obligation ? 

France has tried many experiments on human 
nature without God and his Bible; and what is the 
story of the bloody revolution, and what its repetition 
as read in the flames that consumed so much of the 
glory of Paris in 187 1 ? It was the twin monsters of 
atheism and infidelity arm in arm, rushing forth to 
destruction and to death, utterly lawless and irre- 
sponsible, and yet, remember, loyal to the principles 
they had espoused. What have homes, what the 
rights of men in them, what have men themselves 
amounted to before the hideous shriek and bloody 
tramp of infidel revolution? 



3O4 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

That men are less violent now, must be attributed 
to other causes, and not to that system which, in its 
bold badness, must strike to the dust all lofty sense 
of obligation in the human soul. " This practical 
doctrine of responsibility," says Isaac Taylor, " can 
rest on no fulcrum short of the centre of the universe 
—the throne of God." The man who has faith in 
him, and who has written his law on his heart, will 
be most considerate of the rights of others ; and that 
community where the principles of religion prevail 
most, will be the brightest, the purest, the most pros- 
perous, and it will furnish a manhood that will chal- 
lenge investigation, and endure every test. 

Infidelity is essentially immoral. Begotten in sin, 
it can bring nothing else forth. Through its boldest 
and ablest advocates, it has always taught a habit of 
life that is revolting to every sense of right. Volney 
writes — " There is no merit or crime in intention." 
Lord Herbert writes : " Lewdness, in certain cases, 
only resembles thirst in a dropsy, and inactivity in a 
lethargy." Rousseau writes : "All the morality of 
our actions lies in the judgment we ourselves form of 
them." Others, with these, have written what I can- 
not sully these pages with, nor will I violate the sense 
of decency I owe you in the mention of it. It does 
not aim to correct evil, but, changing its name, to tol- 
erate it. What condition of infidelity forbids crime? 
A monster of iniquity may be an infidel, and it has no 
law to punish or exclude him. Why should the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 305 

mother fall out with her own children ? The re- 
straints of infidelity are the license of evil ; but the 
Christian religion comes uttering condemnation 
against all wrong; like a friendly angel, it does not 
withhold from man his faults, nor does it reveal them 
without providing a gracious remedy. Infidelity 
takes man in his ruin, and blinds him to it, and then 
sets about with revolting success to develop the evil 
in him, until he is its victim, and the hope of life is 
gone. Christianity finds him a wanderer, and brings 
him back, and with all tenderness cultures him into 
the image of heavenly graces here, and finally lifts 
him to the likeness of his Lord in heaven. When 
infidelity can succeed best in correcting my faults, 
and in striking out my disposition to sin, then will 
falsehood have become more favorable to moral per- 
fection than truth ; but who will fairly read its record 
will find another result than this. How it blights a 
man's hope and destiny ! Rob me of my faith in 
God, and turn me away from that process of renewal 
and development revealed in Jesus Christ, and from 
that high aim which God has set like a star in the 
sky of my life, and what have I to live for ? Tis not 
enough to tell me that I have a life here, and that 
around me are interests worthy of my attention. I 
believe it all, and rejoice in it all, when I know that I 
have more; but shut out that light, and I shall join 
the wail of Hume and Voltaire. I am so much in 
mv marvelous self, and the world is so discordant, 



306 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

and so swept by storm and woe, that my soul, mov- 
ing in a higher light, responds to the utterance of the 
Apostle : " If in this life only we have hope, we are 
of all men most miserable ;" and I can find no firm 
anchorage except in that astonishing and successful 
interposition of God in Christ. 

When I think only of the compass and dignity of 
life, and how, out of its very adversities, faith gets 
triumph, the mere thought of infidelity chills and 
repels me. There is no light in its to-day, none in its 
to-morrow. Point me to the single hope, the single 
noble impulse it affords. What of good does it offer 
me if I come to its icy embrace ? Before I give 
Christianity up only as an inspiration, a means of cul- 
ture, an aim of the present life, have" I not a right to 
demand of infidelity that it give me at least some- 
thing as good in return? If I give up my God and 
my Bible, to whom shall I go ? I demand an 
answer. When the storm comes, will infidelity shel- 
ter me ? When some death-dealing sword swings 
toward me, is its shield broad enough to protect me ? 
When it grows dark, has it a lighted lamp to put 
into my hand ? In my weakness, will it furnish some 
hidden power to help me up, to expand the faculties 
of my soul, and to give such direction to my life as 
will make it worthy the force it is, and the possibili- 
ties it possesses ? In vain I wait for an answer ! 
The bloodless lips of infidelity are sealed. Young 
man, if you are an infidel, I cannot exchange with 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR 1'OUNG MEN. 307 

A 

you, even here, where life is only in its infancy ; your 

system is so empty, cold and cheerless, and my own 
is so full, reliable and joyous, that I should be a fool 
to renounce my great good for your monstrous evil. 
A belief in the Christian religion changes not only 
the aim of life, but the whole face of the world, to a 
man. It lifts him into a majesty, and into an owner- 
ship, that is sovereign. Everywhere such a man 
recognizes the fatherhood of God, and from all he 
has made he gets noble impulse. The stars and 
flowers, the streams and mountains, become but so 
many leaves of a revelation in which God has written 
his name, and on which he has impressed his love. 
But what does infidelity get out of .nature ? Nothing 
but confusion and death. Turn it as you will, look 
at it from whatever side, and it forces its own barren- 
ness and limitation upon the mind, and in a world 
like this, and among men of such endowments as we 
possess, it is out of place, an intruder on God's 
domain anywhere, and worthy only of banishment 
into outer darkness. With sympathy for the erring, 
I sum up this whole description of the infidel and his 
system in these lines of Young : 

" Is it in words to paint you ? O, ye fall'n ! 
Fall'n from the wings of reason, and of hope ? 
Erect in stature, prone in appetite ; 
Patrons of pleasure, posting into pain ; 
Lovers of argument, averse to sense ; 
Boasters of liberty, fast bound in chains ; 
Lords of the wide creation, and its shame ; 



308 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

More senseless than the irrationals you scorn ; 
More base than those you rule ; than those you pity 
Far more undone !" 

Now what must be the effect of such a system 
upon the world and civilization ? What has it done 
for the world to commend it to my esteem ? Its 
influence upon human nature is unquestionably bad, 
as we have seen; there is nothing. in it to adapt it to 
the nature and wants of the human soul, or to achieve 
the highest aims of life. But as we look back over 
the history of the world, may we not possibly find 
something in the progress of nations and mankind 
that might entitle it to some consideration ? If so, 
we shall be compelled to admit that it has been badly 
treated; for somehow, though only the minority of 
the world's population is really Christian, yet so wide 
and powerful is the influence of the revealed religion, 
that infidelity has never been allowed a controlling 
influence among the nations of the earth, except in 
exceptional cases, and then its reign has been short. 
No political party in this country would venture to 
take upon itself the burden of an avowed infidel, and 
expect to elevate him to any prominent trust. It 
would be an insult to the intelligence and moral 
sense of the nation which would be promptly resisted. 

When the Pilgrim Fathers landed on these shores, 
they brought the Bible with them, and on that they 
laid the foundation of the republic. They built their 
homes upon it ; they wove it like threads of gold in a 
rich fabric, through all their literature they let it 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 309 

flash — a light from heaven, into all their civil and 
benevolent institutions. When they went out to 
battle, the Bible was in their knapsacks, and God's 
truth was in their shout of victory. When the revo- 
lution was at its height, alongside of an appropriation 
by Congress for gunpowder, was another for the 
importation of twenty thousand copies of the sacred 
Scriptures. And these men knew what they were 
about. They were laying the foundations of a future 
civilization, which we enjoy, and which is without 
any parallel among the nations of the earth. Sup- 
pose these men had been infidels, haters of the Chris- 
tian religion, enemies of the home and of highest 
good, will any man dare to say that. we would enjoy 
the civilization we now enjoy ? The question is 
revolting to common sense, and is swept away by 
facts bright as the sun at noonday. Men talk of 
science and culture as elements of civilization; but I 
would ask if our forefathers were all ignorant in these 
spheres, and, in the words of Dr. Holland, I would 
ask further, " Who built Harvard College ? What 
motives form the very foundation stones of Yale ? 
To whom and to what are the great institutions of 
learning, scattered all over this country, indebted 
for their existence ? There is hardly one of these 
that did not have its birth in, and has not had its 
growth from, Christianity. The founders of all these 
institutions, more particularly those of greatest influ- 
ence and largest facilities, were Christian men who 



3IO LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

worked simply in the interest of their Master. * * * 
Christianity is the undoubted and indisputable mother 
of the scientific culture of the country. But for her, 
our colleges never would have been built — our com- 
mon schools would never have been instituted." 

Despite the great disadvantage at which Christian- 
ity has been put by well-meaning but mistaken and 
erring men, it has still gone on, the wisdom and power 
of God in the earth ; and whatever has been done to 
redeem the world to virtue, prosperity, and happiness, 
it has wrought, and infidel science and infidel ignor- 
ance and malice must all stand back and veil their 
faces from the sheen of its glory, as it moves on con- 
quering and to conquer. And as we follow the light 
of these past triumphs on into the future, what is the 
revelation? Must Christianity give way to a new 
order of civilization ? Is infidelity to take its place, 
and is this lost world to be rescued by a Saviour born 
of its darkness ? No ; Christianity is to go on until 
the world is saved and its triumphs gather to the ju- 
bilee in heaven. Lecky, in his History of Rational- 
ism, in speaking of Christ as a reforming force, says : 
" There is, indeed, nothing more wonderful in the his- 
tory of the human race than the way in which that 
ideal has traversed the lapse of ages, acquiring new 
strength and beauty with each advance of civilization, 
and infusing its beneficent influence into every sphere 
of thought and action." The progress of Christianity, 
as revealed in the Bible, and as distinguished by the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 3 I I 

incarnation of the Son of God, and the civilization of 
the modern world are indentical. 

But still you ask, will Christianity stand the test of 
the ages ? I might answer by asking, has it stood in 
the past ? The same Divine voice that has spoken all 
we have seen of it, says : " The kingdoms of this 
world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of 
his Christ." The results of the past might be ample 
assurance of the success of the future ; but in addition 
it is confidently predicted, that, in the future, 

" Whatsoe'er 
The form of building, or the creed professed, 
The cross — bold type of shame to homage turned, 
Of an unfinished life that sways the world — 
Shall tower as sovereign emblem over all." 

But this is one side ; what has infidelity done for 
the world's good ? Take notice ! I do not ask, what 
have infidels done, for here and there they have con- 
tributed something to the external good of mankind, 
but only when they have risen above the principles 
they professed. But as a system of belief, as a spirit 
and theory of ^life, what has it wrought ? Where are 
the colleges and schools it has built ? where the or- 
phan asylums and hospitals for the sick ? where the 
missionaries it has ever sent with a loving Gospel to 
the heathen ? What has it ever done for the down- 
trodden and oppressed, the widow and the prisoner ? 
what solitary mortal has it ever lifted out of the 
ditch ? what savage ever reclaimed ? what home has 



312 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

it ever regenerated, and set closer to the gate of 
heaven? what community has it ever quickened with 
a new health and a better life ? By all its question- 
ings, its gloom and hopeless uncertainty, what has 
it ever accomplished toward saving this world from 
its sin and misery ? Will any answer come to these 
questions out of its dark vacancy ? Never ! To ask 
them is to answer them ; and if I formulate the re- 
ply, I put it in the words of Christ himself, " By their 
fruits ye shall know them." 

And now, young men, what say you ? If this is 
some brief expression of the difference between infi- 
delity and Christianity in the present, what is it in the 
future ? As you contemplate the life before you, 
which must be so materially affected by either the 
acceptance or rejection of the Christian religion, and 
as you look out upon that illimitable expanse where 
destiny is fixed, and where existence is immortal, 
which of these angels will you have to accompany 
you ? the one with black wing, or the one with fairer 
plumage ? The one from the throne of infinite good- 
ness and glory, or the one from the smoke of the 
pit ? What a contrast is in, and what issues hang on 
the choice which is "so wholly your own as to be in- 
dependent of the best wishes of him who speaks to 
you now. Have both of these forces been strug- 
gling with you for the mastery, and are you weary of 
beating between them ? Infidelity I am sure will 
bring no relief to your perplexity ; it may hush you 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 313 

to troubled sleep, but only to wake you again by the 
horror of its dreams; but above the confusion, if you 
will listen, you may hear a voice sweeter than mother's 
or angel's, saying, " Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That 
heard, that believed, that made the conscious experi- 
ence of the heart, and the unfolding revelation of the 
life, will sweep away your doubts and give perma- 
nence to your hopes. Infidelity can bring you noth- 
ing either for this life or the life to come, that is cer- 
tain. It has no voice from the throne of the Infinite 
Love, no " Thus saith the Lord," for its confirmation. 
Choose it, and the most you can do as you wander 
on, the gloom thickening as you approach the end, is 
to exclaim with the dying Rabelais, " I go to seek a 
great Perhaps." That is all, without faith in God 
and the Christian Revelation. How sad the depart- 
ing song of such a soul — 

" My life is a dim Perhaps, 

From the rock of faith I'm driven, 
No shining light in my clouded breast, 
No star in heaven. 

" Into the gloom I go, 

With Perhaps alone before, 
The great sea rolling all around, 
Without a shore. 

" Farewell — my eyes now close 
On the light of the certain day; 
And into the dark of death, my soul 
Plunges away." 



3 14 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

Beside that, how brighter, grander, clearer sounds 
this symphony of Christian faith and hope. " I know 
whom I have believed." " For I am now ready to be 
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand: I 
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous judge, shall give meat that day." 

Young men, there was no delusion in the brain, no 
flush of confusion in the countenance, no pang of de- 
spair in the heart, and no quiver of doubt on the lips 
that first uttered these words ; nor have they failed the 
thousands whose faith and hope have uttered them 
since. You must decide between two systems, one of 
which tells you, " You have no thirst that you can- 
not slake in the muddy pools that lie at your feet," 
and the other of which cries tenderly, " If any man 
thirst let him come unto me and drink." One of 
which says, "Your doom is the dark, cold grave; get 
into it and rot away ;'*' and the other of which says, " I 
am the resurrection and the life," " In my Father's 
house are many mansions." Your choice is between 
a person and a thing, between a God and a creature, 
between the one, only true Biblical religion, or none. 

It is Infidelity or Christianity — which ? 



T 



CHAPTER XII. 

IVJEIVJORIES OF l^OIVIE. 
HERE is no word in the language that has such a 
compass as the word home. About it cluster the 
brightest charms of life, and yet it often proves a foun- 
tain of evil, sending its poisonous streams through the 
generations. It is some compensation that the mem- 
ory of home to so great a multitude is a delight, and 
that the mention of the word is suggestive of so 
much that is pure and ennobling. It is the one spot 
on earth that lingers longest in human affection, and 
appeals to the noblest impulses, even when the faith 
and habit are seriously at fault. 

There is manifest wisdom in that ordination of God 
by which a love and a memory of home should act as 
a safeguard, to keep men steady amid the perils of 
life and drifting, to arrest them often before their life- 
bark strikes the rocks and they are swallowed up in 
the flood. If by such reference to home and its 
memories I shall be able to contribute to the rescue 
and ennoblement of you young men, whom I have 
led along through these chapters, I shall be more 
than happy. 

His heart must be base in which the mention of a 
(3i5) 



3 16 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

word so resonant with music as home, does not touch 
a tender chord and stir the noblest impulses. Any 
reference to it should quicken in us the holiest mem- 
ories, and be to us as the stroke of an angel's fingers 
on his harp. 

What a high and holy origin the home has ! An 
English writer says, " God made the first man after a 
divine original, and after a divine original, too, he 
made the first home. * * * God has not borrowed 
these images — 'father,' 'children,' 'home' — it is 
heaven that lends to earth, not earth to heaven." 
And I may add that it is heaven alone, heaven in 
grace, heaven in Christ, that comes to renew and 
baptize with a true peace and joy the homes of earth. 
I feel that it becomes us to have a reverent spirit 
when we come to think and talk about home, for to 
the Lord Jesus Christ we owe everything that makes 
it pure and sacred. We too little appreciate, I fear, 
the very great advantage and distinction we have in 
being permitted to rear and to have had our homes in 
a time when, and a land where, Christianity prevails. 
But for him who, with no home of his own, often 
went into and sanctified the homes of others, our 
homes would not have known that sweetness and 
beauty and joy which make their loss one of the 
greatest sorrows of the human heart. 

I have read of a Highland regiment, which though 
summoned away to duty where the climate was 
known to be healthy, in large part fell sick. A 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 317 

skillful surgeon wandering one moonlit evening 
through the barracks, heard a piper playing the favor- 
ite Scotch melody — 

" Lochaber no more, 
May be to return to Lochaber no more." 

The strains were soft and tender, and brought home 
vividly to the imagination of the soldiers. He looked 
to see the effect of the music upon them, and found 
some of them leaning against the wall, others pros- 
trate on the ground, while still others, with their 
heads buried in their hands, wept like children. The 
cause of their sickness was found. The thought and 
the scenes of home had taken such hold upon them 
in their lonely absence that the very functions of life 
were deranged. It is said that the English soldiers in 
the Crimea, sitting one night on the walls about Se- 
bastopol, heard some musicians playing " Home, 
Sweet Home," and nearly all in hearing broke out in 
piteous weeping. 

It is something great in a man's nature that leads 
him to respond to these lines of the poet — ■ 

" There is a land, of every land the pride, 
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside ; 
Where brighter suns dispense serener light. 
And milder moons imparadise the night. 
# * # # * * * 

4< Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found ? 
Art thou a man ? — a patriot ? — look around : 
Oh, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, 
That land thy country ; and that spot thy home." 



3 Io LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

And this but confirms the fact to which the history 
of mankind bears unanswerable testimony that for the 
formation of character there is no place like home. 
There is no class of experiences which become so 
identified with the whole temper and habit of life, as 
those which have been kindled in the home. 

If this were the place, I might bring a solemn 
message now to parents, for they possess a power by 
the hearth-stones which, they have laid, which is 
mightier than kings wield, and which must issue in 
the weal or woe, not only of their own offspring, but 
of many others. The home is the place of first im- 
pression ; there human beings are moulded as nowhere 
else. It is the port from which the bark ot life sets 
sail, and the outfit there prepared will so. largely de- 
termine the direction and destiny of the voyage, that 
the thought is fraught with deepest solemnity. If I 
ask you, young men, to cast about for the origin of 
those impressions, and habits, and opinions, that now 
form the staple of your character, you will likely 
think first of home, and of that name which to every 
man ought to be the sweetest on earth, except the 
name of Jesus — I mean the name of mother. Home 
is an exceptional place ; it has no likeness among the 
haunts of men; it has an air, a form, a freedom, and a 
power, that no spot on earth can boast. Here hearts 
are unmasked, confidence unrestrained, and all the 
faculties and noble impulses are exercised, unfettered 
of ail hesitation and uncomeliness. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 3I9 

"Those of you," says Hamilton, "who arc best 
acquainted with the world or who have read most 
extensively the histories of men, will allow that, in 
the formation of character, the most telling influence 
is the early home. It is that home which often in 
boyhood has formed beforehand our most famous 
scholars, our most celebrated heroes, our most de- 
voted missionaries ; and even when men have grown 
up reckless and reprobate, and have broken all re- 
straints, human and divine, the last anchor which has 
dragged, the last cable they have been able to snap, is 
the memory which moored them to a virtuous home." 

It would be interesting to trace the influence of 
home upon the best life and civilization of the world, 
and it would be easily discovered that homes have 
been as a garden of Eden to this world, and that from 
their deep, rich soil have come under God the most 
beautiful charms, and the sublimest illustrations of 
humanity, as well as the best products of human 
society in all its ramifications. 

And now if this will but serve to magnify, in your 
minds, the importance of a subject entirely too much 
overlooked, one aim of this closing word will be 
gained. 

Young men, I trust y6u have been blessed with a 
godly, happy home ; that in it, or out of it, you can 
say : — 

" The world hath its delights, 
And its delusions, too ; 



320 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

But home to calmer bliss" invites, 
More tranquil and more true. 

" Life's charities, like light, 
Spread smilingly afar ; 
But stars approached, become more bright, 
And home is life's own star. 

" The pilgrim's step in vain 

Seeks Eden's sacred ground ! 
But in home's holy joys, again, 
An Eden may be found." 

And if your home provides you any such exper- 
ience, I beg you, give it the place in your thought, 
and in your reverence, and in your habit it merits; and 
as long as you live, and wherever you are, it will be 
to you as a guardian angel, and as a perpetual bene- 
diction. 

Permit me to say to you who are still under the 
parental supervision and roof, do not chafe under and 
become impatient of the restraints of home. No man 
suffers from the daily influence of a rightly-ordered 
home. The presence of mother and sister has more 
than once disarmed the tempter, and saved the young 
man whom he assailed, and would have beaten to the 
dust but for this mastery of the home. The longer 
a young man keeps within the sound of her voice to 
whom he owes more than to any other human being 
on earth, the longer will he be held* under a restraint 
that a very dash of temptation cannot break down. 

Whenever a young man whose home is a proper 
one, finds it becoming tame, when he wearies of its 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 32 1 

moderation and begins to regard its government as 
too straight-laced; whenever he is ready to say, "It 
will do for the old folks, but it is not any longer gay 
enough for me, I must hie away to better pasture;" 
then degeneracy has set in ; the home has not gene 
down, but this young sprout of a false dignity and a 
fatal delusion has; and there is, very likely, a career 
before that young man over which the tears of a love 
he has violated will fall often and fast With the 
fatal start of Adam, what sorrow has come to man- 
kind from following him away from home. 

Yes, the woe of the world is owing to weariness 
and abandonment of our Father's house. And it is 
still kept up. Many a young man like he of the 
parable repeats the scene of Eden, and tired of a 
home perchance where God's angels hover, he wan- 
ders into some far country where vice and guilty 
pleasures blot all holy impressions from the soul. 

Young' man, cling to your home as long as you 
can; for when you go from it, you will find no place 
where the tone of voice will be so sweet, the affection 
so deep, the interest in your well-being so profound, 
and the self-denial on behalf of your comfort and 
happiness so large. 

Go where you will, you will find no liberty so free, 
no hearth-stone so bright and warm, as where your 
mother sits. 

But of course you cannot always remain there. It 
is God's beautiful arrangement that you should go, 



322 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

and it is right to obey. "God settetruthe solitary in 
families," and he has ordained that one home shall 
bloom into others ; and so the great sweet thought and 
fact is a boon we receive from, and pass on to others. 

But withal, it seems a pity, and more than once 
has proven a calamity, that cruel circumstances should 
so often have sent the young lad out into the cold 
world before he. was tempered to its rude blast, and it 
swept him down to ruin and death. 

But go you must, and I may say for the caution of 
parents, and the vigilance and restraint of the young, 
that the hour when a young man leaves his home is 
a momentous event. It is often but a thing of jest; a 
hasty outfit, a parting word, and he is gone. But 
few events of a man's life may involve more than that. 
It is not every young man that returns to his father's 
house, if he return at all, as he went out. This 
beautiful picture of Lord Lytton is not always realized 
in such instances. " Happy, twice happy, as an after- 
remembrance, be the final parting between hopeful 
son and fearful parent. At the foot of that mystic 
bridge, which starts from the threshold of home — lost 
in the dimness of the far-opposing shore — bridge over 
which goes the boy who shall never return but as the 
man." But there are perils in the hour that records 
the departure of a young man from the paternal home ; 
and Cowper had them in his thought when he de- 
scribes an anxious father laying his hands on his son's 
head and saying: 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 32.3 

" My boy, the unwelcome hour is come, 
And thou, transplanted from thy genial home, 
Must find a colder soil, a bleaker air, 
And trust for safety to a stranger's care." 

Such an event is an introduction to new sights, 
new scenes, new temptations, and new tests of man- 
hood. Then it is often that iniquity appears as an 
angel of light, as it never did 'before, and numerous 
habits and customs and opinions which found no 
sympathy in the teaching* of home look better in a 
new dress, and challenge respect from the new victim, 
in such a modification of his views as at last admits 
them to his thought, and then his favor, and then his 
hearty embrace. Think how many young men come 
to the great, wonderful city. It is a new world for 
them, and bewildered with its multitude, startled with 
its hum and excitement, and how often, beguiled with 
its snares, they plunge quickly into some one of its 
pits, or wander about with a sense of loneliness, or a 
conviction that among so many there is no one to 
love them, all of which the great adversary of souls 
is ever ready to take advantage. They are often seized 
with reckless indifference that exposes them to the 
many approaches of evil. With a place to toil, a place 
to eat and sleep, but virtually homeless, how much 
the young men of our cities need all that a godly 
training and the helping hands of human sympathy 
and kindly counsel, and Christian culture can give to 
guard their manhood, and to keep in growth and power 
their convictions and habit of right. There is a mon- 



324 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

strous evil among us, that with such thoughts and 
such compassion in our hearts, we do not look after 
young men more. Some can find it in their hearts to 
criticise with chilly, scornful words the "Young Men's 
Christian Association," but 1 am sure they could do 
a better thing in joining hands with this noble institu- 
tion, to rescue and welcome to pleasing and saving 
influences these tempted and homeless ones. Are we 
content that young men are fed and sheltered? That 
much is accorded to our beasts of burden. But are 
not these much better than' they? 

I cannot excuse young men when they dash the 
fondest wishes of home to the ground and fall into 
sin that turns the recollections of home into a vision 
of despair, but oh ! I do pity them, as I think of 
them in the great city, often lonely, often forgotten, 
away from the warm bosom of home, with none to 
counsel and care for them; none to quicken their 
virtue; none to stir their consciences; none to inspire 
them with noble hopes, and none to invite them by 
winning influences, to refinement and religion ; but 
thousands to win them to evil, and then lash them on 
its steep, swift way to hopeless ruin. Young men, 
the indifference of stronger and more favorably condi- 
tioned men will not excuse you, and all the more 
does the responsibility come back upon you to main- 
tain your integrity and that fear of God in you, which 
was implanted in your breasts in your early home, 
or if not there, you must have more than once in 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 325 

your own bitter experience since found to be essential 
to your success and happiness. 

It is no compliment to your manhood, to your 
moral strength, to your respect for father and mother, 
that having left your home, you wander also from the 
paths of virtue and rectitude, and cover up the early 
and purest history of your life with the blushing of 
your own guilt. 

But when the stirring demands of life separate you 
from your home, be sure to carry its hallowed mem- 
ories with you — they will prove a safe-guard to your 
character. There is a serious wrong in that home, or 
in that man who quits it, when it is soon forgotten. 
There is something noble in that man's character, 
whose thought and memory of home never die ; and 
who keeps his soul linked to it by ties golden with 
love, and that no changes of time can waste away. 

An English sailor captured by Napoleon in one of 
his invasions, was detected trying to escape across 
the Channel in a small skiff which he had constructed 
of bits of wood and bark. 

Summoned into the presence of the great warrior, 
he was asked if he really meant to risk his life and 
cross the Channel in such a " crazy contrivance " as 
that. He replied, "Yes, and if you will let me, I am 
still willing to try." "You must have a sweet-heart 
whom you are so anxious to revisit." " No," he re- 
marked, " I only wish to see my mother, who is old 
and infirm." "And you shall see her," was the an- 



326 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN.' 

swer, " and take to her this money from me; for she 
must be a good mother to have such an affectionate 
son." A young man who carries with him and 
maintains such a home and mother-love in the 
conflict of life, bears with him a shield against which 
the arrows of evil will strike, but they will fall broken 
and harmless at his feet. 

How tender are these memories, and how they de- 
serve to be hung round in the chambers of the soul 
like pictures on a wall. How can a noble nature for- 
get them, and how can we sin without keen rebuke in 
their recollection ? 

There was the time when angels brought a new 
song to the children, and heaven opened its gates apd 
let a fresh beam of light fall by the hearthstone — a 
child was born. There was the time when the chim- 
ing of silver bells echoed through its halls, and the 
orange blossoms made the sacred atmosphere redolent 
with their sweetness — two hearts were blended in one. 
There was the time when death with silent tread entered 
and blew out the lights of joy, and struck one heart 
still, and all the rest into sorrow — father or mother, 
sister or brother, lay peaceful in burial robes. And 
there are other memories, as when the Bible was read, 
and hymns were sung, and the Lord's day dawned, 
giving thoughts of God and opportunity for worship. 
And there is the memory of innocent mirth, and ah 1 
how many kindly ministries of her whose angel face 
follows you and is indelibly imprinted on the soul, 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 327 

though she may have gone to sleep in the arms of 
Jesus, long ago. 

There is a charm, often a beneficent influence, in the 
whole scenery in which a man's early life is set; and 
memory often recurs to these, and the heart gets com- 
fort and the life gets help. 

I am the better for thinking of the trees that grew, 
and the flowers that bloomed, about my childhood's 
home, and Woodworth sings for me when he says, — 

" How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
When fond recollection recalls them to view ; 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, 
And every loved spot which my infancy knew." 

If I may be allowed to speak of myself, I may say 
that no memory of my early home-life has followed 
me with a more deepening impression, and has con- 
tributed more to my happiness and usefulness, than 
my recollections of the Lord's day. I did not appre- 
ciate it much, but still there was the quiet beauty and 
sanctity of it in those who loved it, and would have 
its music and benediction in the home; and now how 
holy, how precious the memory of it, and far more 
because it was such in my early remembrance, is it 
now a gate of heaven, opening every week to my ad- 
vancing step. I trust not a few of you are and will 
be blessed with a like memory. Very many proofs 
might be presented here to show that human charac- 
ter is faulty and unreliable in the most important re- 



3^8 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

lations of life, where there is no consistent reverence 
for the Lord's day. It is one of the holy memories 
of home that has made the noblest men of the land 
what they are, but it is often given up by young men 
when they go out to mingle with persons and scenes 
that have no sympathy with it. Young men who 
have no religious connections, and have gone from 
their unfortunate homes without any holy impressions 
to anchor them to the right when assailed by evil, 
only find a larger opportunity for the evil in them 
when they abandon home for the world; but there are 
others who are more fortunate — they have been reared 
in a better atmosphere, and from the home they have 
left comes a light that goes before them like a pillar 
of fire, but their first and sharpest temptation will be 
to blot it out and leave the dark way behind them. 
They are compelled often to live in hotels and board- 
ing-houses, where the Lord's day is not only a simple 
convenience, like any other day, but where the whole 
air and burden of influence and example are in con- 
tempt of religion, and the Bible, and the Sabbath. 
The young man, if he has been properly brought up, 
has a Sabbath spirit and habit ; but now he has fallen 
into associations and sometimes a sphere of occupa- 
tion that scorns all this, and the strain upon his prin- 
ciples is tremendous. The Young Men's Christian 
Association, all honor to it, has done much to rescue 
young men here ; still the tide of opposing forces is 
very powerful, and young men whose greatest greed 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 329 

is greed of gain, will carry to God's bar a fearful rec- 
ord, not only for their own disregard of this essential 
ordination, but for the manner in which they have 
often forced others to a like iniquity. In a vast com- 
munity like this, I can see that it is necessary to do 
somethings in the business and social relations of life, 
on the Lord's day, that would be unnecessary in a 
rural district, or small town ; nevertheless it is only 
criminal violation that so breaks in on a young man's 
Sabbath as to strike out of it all sanctity and oppor- 
tunity for rest and worship. Social and business life 
are great offenders here. 

" Nor is il well, nor can it come to good, 
That through profane and infidel contempt 
Of Holy Writ, they have presumed t' annul 
And abrogate, as roundly as they may, 
The total ordinance and will of God." 

Think what a protection God's day properly ob- 
served must be to a young man away from home. 
How he needs its quiet, its holy memories, its oppor- 
tunity for prayer, for praise, the reading of the Bible, 
the hearing of the Gospel, and meditation with God. 
How such an observance will sweep the dust of world- 
liness, and the rust of care and worry, and evil ten- 
dencies, from his soul ; how it will recover him where 
his feet have well nigh slipped, and send him out into 
the world acrain, a stronger and better man. But now 
think of a young man who has been reared in a home 
whose brightest crown and sweetest light was God's 



330 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

day, and now, when he has gone away, and needs it 
most, all that holy recollection and habit which had 
become part of himself is torn from him ; what vio- 
lence is done to his better nature, and into what black- 
ness of darkness he will go. How many young men 
have stepped from under the heaven-lit portals of God's 
day on . the broad road of ruin. " Never," says one, 
" shall I forget the mournful accent with which a 
condemned criminal, shortly before he was executed, 
said in my hearing, that his crimes began with small 
thefts, and pleasure excursions on the Lord's day." 
It is the sad tale of many a young life that has come 
to an untimely end. 

It may not always be easy, but by all that is sacred 
I urge you to preserve in your respect and habit the 
religious memories of your home. Never give them 
up. They made your father and mother what they 
were, they planted your home just one step from 
heaven, and made it to you the cheeriest and bright- 
est spot outside the golden city. To abandon or 
blight, by evil doings, these principles and recollec- 
tions of the sunniest part of your life, is to violate the 
obligations you owe to your parents, and who does 
that reverses the progress of a character that once 
looked heavenward. 

"For character," says Hamilton, "there is a two- 
fold security — the first commandment and the fifth — 
love to God and hallowed domestic affections ; nor is 
that character likely to drift where both anchors are 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 33 I 

out, and where the heart is well moored, both to the 
home on earth and the home on high. Reader, have 
you both ? Young men, scattered about in little 
companies, or dwelling alone in your solitary lodging, 
have you both ? Like a good ship off a dangerous 
coast, are you keeping your heart with all diligence, 
and are both bower and sheet anchor out ? the bower 
of memory, binding you to the' fireside far away 
where loved ones linger ; the sheet anchor of hope 
entering within the veil, and attaching to the Father's 
house and the goodly fellowship assembled there ?" 
Oh, what a hold these memories are ! John Ran- 
dolph once said, " I should have been an atheist if it 
had not been for one recollection — and that was the 
memory of the time when my departed mother used 
to take my little hands in hers, and cause me on my 
knees to say, 'Our Father who art in heaven!'" 

Oh ! young men, cling to these memories ; let no 
ruthless hand, no godless habit, sever the golden link 
that binds you to home and mother, nor ever efface 
from your soul that early image in which you may 
see the Incarnate Son of the Father's house above. 
Wherever you go, wherever you stay, find a lodging, 
if possible; a companionship, if possible; a church, if 
possible, that will preserve to you your home respect 
and memories. However scantily furnished your 
room may be, put into it some mementoes of your 
home, and as much as you can, imprint upon it the 
image of the place you have left. With the Bible on 



33- LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

the table, your mother's picture on the wall, and some 
one spot in it consecrated to prayer, bar the door 
against everything unholy ; and by the remembrance 
of other days, a father's counsel, a mother's devotion, 
and a sister's affection, call that place home, and often 
let a sweet message go from it to the place where 
prayers are still offered for you, and into which no 
tidings come that are received with such loving and 
grateful interest as your own letters. I am sure the 
heart of the mother of Henry Kirke White must have 
thrilled with tearful joy when, opening a letter written 
near the close of his college career, she read : " Never 
do I lay myself on my bed before you have all passed 
before me in my prayers." 

Make your abode such a spot, and though it be in 
the garret, and without any show of art or elegance, 
the angels will come there, the soft, sweet scented 
breezes of Paradise will blow through it, God will 
lighten it with his presence, and in memory of a 
mother's love, the everlasting arms will be about you. 

" The sorrowful babe 
Clings to its mother's breast. The bleeding dove 
Flies to her native vale, and nestles there 
To die amid the quiet grove, where first 
She tried her tender pinion. I could love 
Thus to repose amid these peaceful scenes, 
To memory dear. Oh, it were passing sweet 
To rest forever on this lovely spot, 
Where passed my days of innocence, to dream 
Of the pure stream of infant happiness 
Sunk in life's wild and burning sands to dwell — 
On visions faded, till my broken heart 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 333 

Should cease to throb — to purify my soul 
With high and holy musings — and to lift 
Its aspirations to the central home 
Of love, and peace, and holiness, in heaven." 

I can scarce think of anything sadder than the 
blighting of the holy memories of home by sin; and 
yet, how many a young man has carried them all 
down in his own debauch and wreck! It is quite 
possible that these words may come to some who 
left their homes unsullied by the uncleanness of vice, 
arid endowed with a purity of thought and affection 
that was the pride of mother and sister, and might 
still reflect the glory of a noble character and life. 
But for many that charming vision is all beclouded, 
they cannot think of home without a sense of shame 
that has in it the very fires of hell. There is some- 
thing in guilt that turns the holiest memories into a 
smiting lash, and the soul is smitten with agony, not 
so much at the depth of its ruin as at the height from 
which it has fallen. Oh, crowd into the mind of one 
who has plunged into sinful indulgence until he drips 
with guilt, the memory of a godly mother, an anxious 
father, and a happy home, and you kindle there, 
unless he has reached the point of hopeless abandon- 
ment, a sense of remorse that is unutterable. 

Dr. Wise, in his " Young Man's Counsellor," tells 
of a youth who was well reared and gifted. He went 
to the city to seek employment. Soon evil compan- 
ions found him out, and in a few months all the 
springs of his nature ran with guilt ; ruined in body 



334 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

and soul, the law arrested and imprisoned him, and 
there in his cell, in writhing anguish, he cried out to 
his mates : " Cut my throat ! kill me ! trample me 
to death ! My parents ! — how can I ever look them 
in the face again ?" A kindly man became his surety, 
and took him to his home. He told his benefactor 
that he was the son of a clergyman. It was evident 
he could not live long, and the good man communi- 
cated his condition to his father, and summoned him 
to the dying bed of his prodigal child. 

After the letter was sent, the writer asked him in a 
moment of calmness, if he would not like to see his 
father. " Oh no ! Let me die rather ! I have brought 
dishonor upon his gray hairs, and how can I look upon 
his face again? Let me die, but have pity on my 
poor father!" The father hastened to his bed. The 
shattered victim was informed of his arrival, but hid- 
ing his face, he cried out : " I can't see him ! I can't 
— I can't ! Speak to him for me ; tell him I died." 
They met, and I leave you to imagine the rest. 

You think this an extreme case, but I fear there 
are many not wholly dissimilar. It was only the 
other day, I cut these lines from one of our dailies. 
They were written by a convict in the Illinois State 
prison. The tale is so similar to the one above, and 
so touching that I quote it. 

"It's curious, isn't it, Billy, 

The changes that twelve months may bring. 
Last year I was at Saratoga, 
As happy and rich as a king. 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 335 

I was taking in pools on the races, 

And feeing the waiters with ' Ten,' 
And sipping mint juleps by twilight ; 

And to-day I am here in the ' Pen.' 

" What led me to do it ? What always 

Leads men to destruction and crime ? 
The Prodigal Son, whom you've read of 

Has altered somewhat in his time. 
He spends his substance as freely 

As the biblical fellow of old, 
But when it is gone, he fancies 

The husks will turn into gold. 



" The old, old story, Billy, 

Of pleasures that end in tears, 
The froth that foams for an hour, 
The dregs that are tasted for years. 

" Last night as I sat here and pondered, 
On the end of my evil ways, 
There arose, like a phantom before me, 

The visions of boyhood days. 
I thought of my old home, Billy, 

Of the school-house that stood on the hill, 
Of the brook that flowed through the meadow 
- I can e'en hear its music still. 

"Again, I thought of my mother, 

Of the mother who taught me to pray, 
Whose love was a precious treasure 

That I heedlessly cast away. 
I saw again in my visions 

The fresh-lipped, careless boy, 
To whom the future was boundless, 

And the world but a mighty toy. 

" I thought of all this as I sat here, 
Of my ruined and wasted life. 
And the pangs of remorse were bitter, 
They pierced my heart like a knife. 



336 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

It takes some courage, Billy, 

To laugh in the face of fate, 
When the yearning ambitions of manhood 

Are blasted at twenty-eight." 

Young man, do you know anything of this exper- 
ience ? are your memories of home a sting of remorse 
to you because of the way in which you have brought 
reproach upon it — it may be have crushed out the joy 
of your mother's heart, and thickened the snow on 
your father's head? Oh ! where shall I get words to 
summon you back to God and duty ? How shall I 
kindle anew the old 'home love, and stir to their old 
life the memories you have buried under the cinders 
of your ruin ? 

By what potent spell shall I call up again the im- 
age of your early home, and open your eyes to read 
on its walls some motto of God's word, wrought into 
comely shape by loving hands, and by which I can 
grasp you and bring you back a penitent prodigal to 
a home that might yet be cheered before the lights 
all go out, and to the embrace of your Saviour who 
waits to receive you. I fain would stand and plead 
with you ; I would call by all the flood of memories 
over which you have swept the darkness, and by a 
mother's love and prayers if she live, and by her 
grave if she be dead, come back, come back ! And 
saved by grace, the black night between you and your 
godly home will vanish, and the bright angels of holy 
memory will return, and the power of home and the 
power of God, like a good wind that helps the vessel 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 337 

out of the lashing waves, will have at last moored 
you to the safe harbor whence you have been driven. 
A wounded soldier lay in a hospital at Edinburgh. 
The surgeons did what they could for him, and then 
told him he must die. He scorned death, and prided 
in his fearlessness of it. So wicked was he that, hear- 
ing his blasphemy, you would suppose he had been 
born and reared among the degraded. But no, he had 
a pious home. A good man approached him and en- 
gaged him in kindly conversation about his life, and 
then about his soul. But for the latter he had no con- 
cern, and requested no conversation on the subject. 
He asked the privilege to pray with him. It was 
harshly refused, and he turned his face to the wall. 

The good man, discouraged, was silent a few mo- 
ments, and then he began to sing that old hymn, so 
dear and so familiar to the people of Scotland : 

" O mother dear, Jerusalem, 

When shall I come to thee?" 

As the clear, full voice rose, it rent the misty veil 
between the past and present, and turning around, the 
soldier said, with a milder expression on his face : 
"• Who taught you that hymn?" " My mother," was 
the reply. " So did mine. I learned it of her when I 
was a child, and I used to. sing it with her." And 
then the tears fell from his cheeks. The door of his 
heart was open, and then and there, weeping, he 
listened to the story of salvation, and with the damp 



338 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

of death on his brow, he trusted in his mother's God, 
and the sinner's Friend. 

Oh, how often it has been, that when all other 
means have failed, some blessed home memory, some- 
how started out of the darkness, has been twisted into 
a silken cord to bind a wandering soul to the cross. 

If any of you have gone from God and from memo- 
ries of home that bring him glory, I could pray that 
it might be now with you as with an infidel of talent 
who, on one occasion, bowed his head at a religious 
meeting and cried out: "God of my mother, have 
mercy on me." But what if you have no such holy 
memories ? What if you only remember home as a 
scene of luxury, or poverty, or degradation, or refined 
godlessness? I do not covet any such memory. Great 
is the advantage, and great the responsibility, of those 
whose homes are suggestive of such things as the 
Bible, the house of God, the altar of prayer, the praise 
of the sanctuary, and the cross of Christ. 

Blessed forever those in whose homes Jesus is a 
guest, and the spirit and life of which continue to 
chime the glory due him — 

" Bring forth the royal diadem 
And crown him Lord of all." 

But if some of you have not carried that precious 
legacy away with you, if you cannot look back on 
such a vision, it is not too late to create it now, and 
for those who shall come after you, leave it on the 



LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 339 

face of the future. Many of you have started hornet 
of yo.ur own. You should feel that they invol re- 
issues of such a kind and permanency as make the 
foundation on which they rest, and the spirit that is 
to pervade them, a most solemn consideration. The 
time will come when the homes of the youngest of 
you will share the common fate. One and another 
will go, now by way of the tomb, and now by way of 
the changes that are constantly severing the dearest 
ties, until your home, like that which now only lingers 
in memory, shall be but a fragment of its former self. 
Your children will for awhile come back to you, it is 
to be hoped, and scatter the flowers of gratitude and 
love on your declining way ; but how much all that 
will depend upon what home memories you send 
them away with. You may send them so that their 
return will be as the coming of angels ; but if your 
home is without a God, a Bible, and an altar, there is 
no flourish of wealth, no material gorgeousness, that 
will make it suggestive of that higher love of God, 
and of heaven, and there will not be that charm 
which makes many homes but a stepping-stone to 
the better home in the skies. And what wonder, 
if with God shut out, and Christ's dear name never 
woven with its music, your children should return to 
your home to hurl curses on the hearthstone by 
which they were reared ? God save you so bitter an 
experience !. Then, if you have not, admit Christ to 
your home ; tie it to his cross by cords of love and 



340 LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. 

fidelity, and he will impress it with the transfiguration 
of a beauty that will never fade; and when vqu and 
your children, now sadly and now happily, sing — 

"Home! home! sweet, sweet, home!" — 

You will be able to add in joyful faith and hope : 
" In my Father's house are many mansions." 

" When breaks each mortal tie 
That holds me from the goal, 
This, this can satisfy 

The cravings of my soul — 
I'm going home." 



